Finally. Lower disability insurance rates that reward your healthy lifestyle.

To best answer this question, ask yourself: Can I retire comfortably tomorrow if I had to stop working today? If the answer is "no," then looking into options for protecting your income makes sense. Disability insurance can help you protect your income.

One in four Americans experiences a disability at some point in their careers. If this happens to you, disability insurance will allow you to keep paying your bills as you recover. Even if you don’t work in a physically demanding job, disability insurance can be an important part of your long-term financial strategy, since disability is more often caused by medical conditions such as heart disease or cancer than by on the job accidents.

Any condition that prevents you from being capable of work, such as depression after losing a loved one or taking time off to fight cancer, may be considered a disability. Being able to focus your attention 100% on recovery without having to worry about how you’re going to pay the monthly bills will likely lead you to recover faster.

Disability insurance is particularly important if you are the sole breadwinner for your household, are self-employed, or do not receive any coverage through your employer.

On average disability insurance can cost 1-4% of your annual salary, but this amount will vary depending on several factors such as your age, occupation, and the coverage amount you select.

Keep in mind that some occupations may keep you from qualifying for disability insurance, but for those that do: a good rule of thumb is that 1-4% of your income can provide from 40% - 100% protection of your paycheck, as your employer may already offer partial coverage. When employers offer this benefit, it is often around 60% of your base salary.

Health IQ is on a mission to celebrate people who use their time, energy, and money on living healthy lifestyles with special rates on their insurances. We believe that people living healthy lifestyles are overpaying for disability insurance, and we have negotiated with top insurance companies to offer these special reduced rates directly to you.

In general: Assess your current health with a few questions and a free medical exam, scoring “Elite” on one of our approved Health IQ quizzes and verify your healthy lifestyle.

No. Our special rate disability insurance policies are exclusive to us, based on our proprietary data demonstrating that health conscious people make fewer claims. We’ve used this information to negotiate better rates with top-rated insurance carriers and are happy to pass the savings along to you.

As a rule of thumb it makes sense for most people to have enough income protected to cover your M.U.G—Mortgage, Utilities, and Groceries—so that you can keep your household running should you not be able to work for an extended period of time.

The following equation is a good place to start when figuring out how much disability insurance coverage you need:

Current Monthly Living Expenses - Reductions in Spending - Income From Other Sources = Minimum Disability Insurance Benefits.

You may be able to get by with less coverage if you have a partner who works or other income sources. The typical policy will pay between 40 - 70% of your annual salary. Most of the time clients can protect nearly their entire paycheck.

The definition of what constitutes a disability varies by insurance policy and by occupational class. The two most common definitions are “own occupation,” which pays out if you are no longer able to perform your specific occupation, and “any occupation,” which becomes active if you aren’t able to do any job at all. A stricter definition of what constitutes a disability will usually result in lower premiums.

Both life and disability insurance are important for protecting your family, though you are much more likely to experience a disability at some point in your career than an untimely death. Disability insurance will help keep your household running by paying monthly benefits if you are too sick or injured to work for an extended period of time, while life insurance will only pay out in the event of your death.

If you become disabled and remain disabled throughout the elimination period specified in your policy (30, 60, 90, 180 days, etc), you will begin collecting the monthly benefit. Once you begin receiving benefits, you will no longer have to pay premiums.

Once your policy is issued the insurance company cannot cancel it, except for reasons specifically stated in the policy. Typically, policies will be subject to cancellation only for failure to make required premium payments or for some type of fraud by the policyholder.