I know someone who suffered an accident, and was unable to work for a long time. He started on "short-term disability" support, which covered a significant portion of his wages until 3 months (I think it was 3 months) had elapsed. After that he was transferred to long-term disability support, which covered physiotherapy, medication, and other treatments to improve his mobility and ability to work, and a smaller, but still substantial portion of his salary. It also helped pay for changes to the office building that would make it more accessible for him when he came back to work. He wasn't always happy with the case worker that monitored his file, but at least he had the same case worker as contact to the insurance company. He didn't have to phone the "next random customer service rep" every time.

STF

Thanks SparWeb for your insights. Dementia is a "fleeting" and in the beginning not readily visible condition. A family member of mine had it. Before I sink money into something I want to make sure it will "work" if need to.

Eric McDonald, PE
McDonald Structural Engineering, PLLC

The policy you sign up for may have specific clauses for specific maladies. If there's anything you have seen in your family that could be in your future, then you want to look for it in the policy and decide if their coverage will support you, or throw you to the wolves. You should also expect a medical exam and risk analysis if you want the lowest premium. If you don't want to disclose something, you can accept a higher premium and just answer a questionnaire. If given a choice of insurance companies, give them exactly the same information to get quotes, otherwise you won't know if quote 1 is higher than quote 2 because you disclosed information to 1 and not 2 or because company 1 is always more expensive than company 2. I went to an insurance broker who did some of the legwork for me. That was early in my career, starting a family, working a job at a small company without employee benefits, so disability insurance made sense to me. Today I work at a company that has a policy for all of its workers. It's cheaper and has better coverage.

STF