Written By: Joe Surrell
The name may be a little deceiving. Residual disability benefits can be one of the most important parts of your disability policy, but are often the most misunderstood.
Typically when people think of a disability, they often think of a catastrophic disability like a car accident, resulting in complete and total disability. But many times, people start out on a disability claim from some sort of disabling illness that takes effect over time. This is where the residual definition on your policy would take effect. Let’s take a look at how a residual benefit could pay.
Hypothetically speaking, let’s suppose that you are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. When you are first diagnosed with this, you may still be working at 100% in your specialty and doing the exact same duties. However, as the disease progresses, you may have to slow down and decrease your hours or number of patients in a day. This would cause potential loss of income, which would then trigger your benefits to kick in. If you have residual on your policy, your benefits may begin either as soon as you reach a certain loss of monthly income, typically 15-20%. For example, if you have a $10,000 monthly benefit with a company and you are losing 40% of your monthly income because of a residual disability, then the insurance policy would provide a monthly benefit of $4,000.
More than anything, it is important you know there are a lot of options available to you, and every physician’s situation is different. Please make sure you educate yourself fully about what is available and take the time to discuss what is best for you with your trusted financial professional.