HR Outsourcing News Roundup: Disability Insurance Edition

By Aja Thibodeaux / October 30, 2014 / Uncategorized No Comments

A temporary disability can happen to anyone. People fall off ladders or slip in the shower every day — and if the injury or illness is serious enough, it can affect an employee’s ability to work.

Disability insurance can help mitigate the loss of income during the time an employee is unable to work, but not enough people understand the importance of this insurance or how vulnerable they would be if they lost their income for a few months — let alone several. Some just don’t understand how it works at all. For example, is an individual still insured after losing a job? In the (extremely unlikely) event one of your employees is exposed to the ebola virus, would that be covered?

This week’s HR Outsourcing News Roundup brings you articles and blog posts with advice and information on the benefits of disability insurance.

Insurance Mistakes People Make at Every Age. The Washington Post: “People with high-earning jobs, particularly those in specialty fields such as surgery where it might be difficult to re-enter after a physical disability, may want to supplement that coverage with another plan that will replace a higher percentage of their income.”

Here’s What the Medical Bills for Ebola Look Like. MarketWatch: “It’s unlikely that a disability insurance policy will cover wages lost to Ebola quarantine, said Steven Weisbart, senior vice president and chief economist at the Insurance Information Institute. To qualify for disability, most policies require a medical determination that a person can’t do a job, and that doesn’t apply to an asymptomatic person confined to the home out of caution.”

Three Key Voluntary Policies for Women. Small Business Trends: “Disability insurance protects the working woman’s most valuable asset: Her ability to earn a living. In the event of sickness or accidental injury, disability insurance for your employees helps provide peace of mind and financial protection. Policyholders can use disability benefits to pay the bills that continue to roll in even when their paychecks don’t.”

The Most Important Asset You’re Forgetting to Protect. DailyFinance: “According to the Council for Disability Awareness, more than one in four of today’s 20-year-olds will become temporarily disabled before they retire. On top of that, the average long-term disability claim lasts 34.6 months. So even if you follow the sound advice of the personal finance world to set aside three to six months of emergency funds, odds are, if it happens to you, you’ll come up quite short on money to get through.”

If you’re interested looking at short- or long-term disability benefits for your employees, contact us. We’re here to help.

HR Solutions is a human resources outsourcing firm based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We eliminate human resources headaches for businesses with 10 to 1,000 employees by handling their payroll, employee benefits, regulatory compliance and other staffing needs. Contact us to learn how we can streamline your company’s human resources function to save money and reduce risk.

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