Disability Insurance - Dunnville

When you have a young family, you income supports more than just your own needs. A loss or disruption to your income may result in significant changes to your family’s lifestyle. If you are the income earner (or one of the income earners) for your family, it is extremely important to take some time to understand how you can protect your family from such unwanted changes. Although you may be in the early stages of your career, a disability insurance policy can be customized to meet your changing needs. We can add additional benefits to your policy to ensure that you can increase your coverage in the future without any medical underwriting to ensure proper protection. The most important step you can take is to review your disability insurance sooner rather than later and take advantage of lower rates for life at your younger age.

Any changes to your income, lifestyle, or job (amongst other things) can affect your disability insurance need. Our team of experts at Hometown Life Insurance in Dunnville are here to provide you with support and guidance along the way. By including additional riders (such as a future insurability option) in your policy, it will allow for simple adjustments to ensure your coverage grows with you. In addition, individual insurance can provide you with the freedom to seek a new job or start a business, while your group insurance coverage will only cover you while you are an employee. For individuals that don’t have proper disability coverage, suddenly losing their income may result in them dipping into their retirement savings. When funds are withdrawn, it changes your ability to retire. You may have to work longer, have a much lower income in retirement, or maybe never retire at all. Don’t gamble with your retirement, disability insurance provides the protection you need.

The premiums on your disability insurance policy is set by the underwriters, based on your individual risk. The factors that are considered include the coverage term (from 24 months to coverage that lasts until 65), waiting period (in the application, you select the number of days of disability before you qualify for a benefit payment) and other areas that are common with life and critical illness insurance like gender, age, smoking status, health, and lifestyle details and any riders on the policy. The maximum coverage you can replace with a disability insurance policy is commonly 80-90% of your after-tax working income so that there is incentive to return to work.

If there comes a time where you have to make a claim on your disability policy, start by contacting our team at Hometown Life Insurance. We will assist you with the claims process by collecting the required information to submit to the insurance company. Once the case has been reviewed, and your waiting period has been satisfied, your monthly income benefits will commence. We understand that a disability can be unexpected and stressful, so we are here to make the claims process as simple as possible for you and your family.

The insurance company covers the cost of the quote, application and any medical underwriting requirements to get your policy approved. As the policyowner, the only cost to you is the premiums you will pay for your policy once it is approved. Until your policy is ready to be activated, you won’t pay anything – it will just cost a little bit of your time.

A disability insurance policy can be cancelled at any time without any additional fees or costs to you. However, it is important to consider the implications of cancelling any insurance policy. If you were to require coverage again in the future, you would have to go through the application process from the beginning. Your premiums would also be higher based on your age increasing and potential changes in your health. If your policy included a “Return of Premium” rider, you may receive a portion of your premium payments back (assuming you have reached the required date to qualify). Our Dunnville Hometown Life Insurance team is here to ensure you understand the implications cancelling your policy so you can make the right choice.

The underwriting process for disability insurance begins with the completion of the application. All information in the application helps the underwriter, as they review your specific case and determine if any other information is required. The basic information collected relates to your health, occupation, medical details, lifestyle, income, and some other areas. Your information allows the underwriter to understand the level of risk you pose to the insurance company. It is common for the underwriting process on disability insurance to take longer than other forms of insurance, but don’t let that worry you – it doesn’t mean it will affect your coverage or premiums!