Attorney Disability Insurance

Unique Solutions for Legal Professionals

As a new or experienced attorney, you have dedicated an enormous amount of time, effort, and financial resources to becoming an expert in your field. Your most important asset is your ability to perform at a high level, both physically and intellectually. For the practice of law, the intellectual and cognitive skills are more critical than for many other occupations.

You have to know the specific laws within your field of practice. You must maintain effective communication skills. In short, you have to stay on top of your game at all times and under all circumstances!

Recognizing that some physical limitations can be less threatening to your ability to law, while a loss in cognitive ability can be incredibly damaging and destructive to a successful career is just one reason why you must work with an accomplished disability income practitioner when designing your plan.

Knowledge based occupations such as the practice of law requires unique skills and talents. Leaving these skills unprotected or subject to the less comprehensive language of group disability insurance will leave you far more exposed than you may realize.

Protecting Your Future: Disability Insurance for Lawyers

By partnering with the specialists at MyDisabilityPlans.com, you’ll benefit from in depth discussions regarding proper contract language and design that will protect your unique skills. We’ll help you find the most appropriate insurance solution by reviewing your unique situation and then obtaining multiple quotes from leading disability insurance companies.

We’ll review each quote with you focusing on the important provisions of the contract along with the costs associated with a properly designed disability insurance solution for lawyers.

We’ll also help you design a plan that will grow with you! Many attorneys engage in a practice with a moderate and predictable income growth rate while others have the potential to grow faster or with more variability.

Understanding this aspect of your practice of law and designing a plan that can react appropriately is one key aspect of a proper plan. At MyDisabilityPlans.com, we understand how important this is and will make sure we provide options to help you protect your tomorrows as well as today.

Coverage Considerations: Disability Insurance For Lawyers

Whether you’re searching for an individual disability insurance policy to serve as your primary income protection plan or you need to supplement your practice’s group disability policy, you need the expert advice MyDisabilityPlans.com can provide when designing your attorney specific disability insurance policy.

There are important considerations you have to take into account and having an expert at your side will make your design work easier and more effective. Just a few of these design choices are:

1. Definition Of Disability

• Specialty Own Occupation – May provide the most flexibility during a disability for a lawyer with a practice confined to some recognized specialty areas of practice.
• Transitional Own Occupation – Unique definitional tool providing much of the protections of Specialty Own Occupation at lower price points.
• Own Occupation and Not Engaged In Other Employment – A more traditional approach which leverages the “Residual or Partial Disability” provision to provide protection when you change occupations due to your disability.
• Any Reasonable Occupation – Typically one of the weakest definitions of disability typically following a short period of Own Occupation protection. This type of definition is prevalent in the employer provided group disability insurance provided by many law firms.

2. Definition of Residual (Partial) Disability

These and other questions should be discussed to make sure you have chosen the Residual/Partial provision which best fits your type of law practice.

• Will your policy benefits begin after you can’t perform some of the duties of your occupation or will a specified combination of loss of duties and income loss be required?
• What percentage loss is required to trigger a benefit?
• Is there an opportunity to continue benefits after you have recovered but still suffer a loss of income?

3. Ability to Increase Your Coverage Without Demonstrating Financial of Medical Insurability

There are many scenarios which may require a unique application of the available provisions in the marketplace.

• Associate to Partner – Increased experience and knowledge within your practice of law demand different levels of disability insurance for attorneys. As your career progresses, your income should increase. Designing your disability plan to adjust to future income increases without potentially troublesome underwriting will make adding protection easy and hassle free.
• Starting Your Own Practice – Your skills and obligations change when you are not only a practicing attorney but also a business owner. Being an owner of a practice requires increased focus on the sources of your income and the retention of your clients. Whether you currently own your practice or you are hopeful of this opportunity in the future, building your attorney disability insurance plan with the added flexibility for this future possibility can be cost effective when done at the outset of your plan.
• Multiple Sources of Compensation – Does your current disability income policy recognize the multiple sources of your total income? Many attorneys earn salary and bonus income. There may be additional income coming in the way of retirement plan contributions. Many employer provided lawyer disability insurance plans don’t cover all the types of income you receive from your practice! And they don’t have the protections you need to adjust your coverage when circumstances change. MyDisabilityPlans.com will help you better understand the details of your current plan when you engage in The 7 Steps to Disability Planning Success ™. Part of the process will include a review of your existing plans with our consultants to make sure your current coverage will perform up to your requirements.
• Changes or Loss of Employer Provided Group Disability Coverage – With many employer sponsored plans, changes are ongoing to control the costs of benefits. A simple change in insurance carriers may leave you exposed. Do you have a backup plan should your employer decide to change what they offer you?.

In summary, your physical ability to perform is a given but consider the other important aspects of your ability to practice. What if you can’t focus for long periods of time, or you lose the ability to recall information, interpret, and articulate case law. The ability to handle the stress created by the constant need to perform at an exceptional level is a critical aspect of your job as an attorney.