Help - work STD/LTD/Life insurance

[adventure_woman]

So DH is being offered STD/LTD and life insurance through work. Couple of questions:

STD/LTD - do you recommend this? At what point is the dollar amount too much? The STD starts at 14 days - 11 weeks. The LTD starts at 90 days.

Life insurance
Is it better to just get a low $$ amount with this, and then get a separate personal plan so that if DH leaves the company, we aren't paying a lot more because we are older? He has a whole life policy right now, but I think we are leaning on cancelling that and getting us both term. The insurance through work seems to be inexpensive, but I haven't priced term life insurance so I'm not for sure the price difference btw something being offered by employer and something we could just get as an individual.

I hope this makes sense - we want to make the right decision but we are a little clueless!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Yes on both disability insurances. You just never know and I have known a few people to use them. I used it myself when I had a baby (which I know won't apply to your husband ).

Could you clarify what you mean by your question "At what point is the dollar amount too much? "

Life Insurance is simply a term policy tied to the employment at the work place. For us, it doesn't cost much and it is just something a little extra over our regular term life insurance. Regular term life insurance is often recommended by financial experts. But again--I like the little bit of extra from the employer. I think we have 1 year's salary.

 

[adventure_woman]

Could you clarify what you mean by your question "At what point is the dollar amount too much? "

Do you automatically get it (regardless of price) or do you try to figure out if it would be worth it to pay xx much for it?

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Do you automatically get it (regardless of price) or do you try to figure out if it would be worth it to pay xx much for it?

It is a bad financial plan to NOT get it. In fact--someone just posted a thread about a friend who has cancer and risks getting fired unless she took a demotion or went on medical leave.

Having disability insurance would prevent you from being forced to try and work when it isn't medically feasible or it is simply impossible. Someone posted that it stinks to have to be stuck without income. That is what disability insurance is for.

You could certainly shop around to cost compare. But we just get the company's version. Not having it is not an option as, like health insurance, it is just too costly to not have it.

I don't have a paystub handy at the moment, but it doesn't cost much in the grand scheme. (I think it is much less than the health insurance.)

 

[deedeezee]

So DH is being offered STD/LTD and life insurance through work. Couple of questions:

STD/LTD - do you recommend this? At what point is the dollar amount too much? The STD starts at 14 days - 11 weeks. The LTD starts at 90 days.

Life insurance
Is it better to just get a low $$ amount with this, and then get a separate personal plan so that if DH leaves the company, we aren't paying a lot more because we are older? He has a whole life policy right now, but I think we are leaning on cancelling that and getting us both term. The insurance through work seems to be inexpensive, but I haven't priced term life insurance so I'm not for sure the price difference btw something being offered by employer and something we could just get as an individual.

I hope this makes sense - we want to make the right decision but we are a little clueless!

Like PP, I think having STD/LTD is a good protection plan in case something happens. It *should* be relatively low-priced, right?

Re: life insurance, I would get a quote as an individual and maybe sign up through work if there are any health concerns (reason: work policies typically don't have you go through the medical questionnaire/blood test that private policies do, so it would take effect quickly). Definitely cancel the whole life (you can google why - they are not a good "investment" nor a good "insurance plan"). Term life is a great deal, very inexpensive. And having it separate from your work is a great idea so it goes with you even if you leave your job. HTH!

 

[meriface11]

you are actually more likely to be in a situation where you need to claim STD or LTD than you are to pass away during the time period of a term life insurance plan, yet more people have life insurance than they do ST or LT disability. not saying that life insurance isn't a necessity, but STD/LTD are very valuable policies to carry.

 

[kellyg403]

I would check into the Life Insurance and what is covered. My company offers an insurance that is free that covers 2xs my annual salary. I have a whole life policy I started several years ago, so I did not get anymore. The STD/LTD I wouldn't go without. In 2005 I had a medical issue. I ended up being out of work for about 7 weeks. NC does not pay out disability for the first 7 days, so that was sick and vacation time depending on what you had available. My company has a built in disability plan that covered my insurance and a few other things that come out of my salary. The STD actually gave me a check for bills after 30 days of dr's care. It helped so much and there would not be a time I would forego the disability insurance. I don't think the premiums I pay per check are over 50.00 combined. I will have to check, I don't have a stub handy but it is really cheap compared to the benefit of having it.


Kelly

 

[dismichelle]

I did not elect to get STD this year and did not sign-up for next year either. I still get LTD.

It's recommended by my HR people to do it this way if you have enough sick time saved up. I have enough sick time now to last at least 8-9 weeks at 100% pay, and get an additional 2.5 weeks each year. LTD would then pick up after 11 weeks off.

STD would cost me about $16/every 2 weeks. LTD costs $3/every 2 weeks.
Both STD and LTD pay only 60%.

The only way I could see myself getting STD now is if I have to use up all my sick time this year, I would then get STD for the next year, otherwise I think it's more wise for me to use that $16/pay period to go to my 401K.

I also have a private term life ins., but get another $250,000 from my job since it's $4/month.

 

[puffkin]

Every company both my husband and I have worked for pays for STD/LTD. We have used it several times so it is definitely worth it (once for pregnancy and once my DH was out of work a few weeks with a pretty bad leg injury). The life insurance is such a nominal cost (I think mine is $3-$4 a month) it is kind of silly not to get it.

 

[bettymae1121]

My company gives us ST for free and we pay pennies per pay check for LTD. We also get 2x our annual pay for life insurance at no cost, with the option to buy more at our own expense if we wish to (I chose not to). DH gets STD only, no LTD is offered at his company. He gets 1x his annual pay for life insurance and pays pennies more to get a grand total of 5x his annual pay for life insurance.

Even so, we did get our own term life policies out side our companies, if one of us leaves our jobs and die before getting a new job with life insurance or getting our own policies, we'd be screwed. We figured it would be better to get our own and suppliment with whatever our employers offer us, if needed.

As for LTD, I'd love to get that for my husband but I'm having a hell of a time finding a company that offiers it. Our insurance company (State Farm) doesn't offer it in IL and when I google it, nothing really comes up. Does anyone here buy LTD coverage on their own that can recommend a company?

 

[angierae]

We get LTD for free, but have NO STD, so you pretty much have to have the 90 days of pay saved up to be able to survive until the LTD kicks in. I would jump at the chance to have both, even if I had to pay for it.

 

[kim929]

When doing my benifits for the year, My dh purchased ltd (our company gave us std) I thought he was nuts. He said it only cost 40cents a week.

2 yrs ago I fell at work and have been out ever since. (numerous surgeries and another one coming up). boy was I glad my dh purchased. In RI we have tdi through the state that we pay into each pay period, the short term and long term paid the bal to give me a full paycheck and when Tdi stopped they gave me the full amount. Now I just get a portion of it for life as long as I'm still disabled.

Life ins he always picked the most you could for me and for him.

So yes, it is worth every penny you spend on it.

 

[Denisem7]

Buying an independent life insurance policy is highly recommended. Read the fine print to see what additional benefits you might receive through the one offered at DH’s work. I’d say keep the life insurance he gets from his workplace since it will be cheap—group life insurance is generally cheap. But you should consider getting additional life insurance policies in case DH leaves his job and subsequently loses the workplace life insurance.

Keep in mind that term insurance gets more expensive as you get older and it does not offer life time coverage. Buying term life insurance policies for both of you now makes good sense. You might want to consider a joint life insurance policy. You can easily check out life insurance rates that would apply to you on aggregator websites.

Denise Mancini
Disclaimer: I work for AccuQuote and this is my personal opinion.

 

[kamik86]

For right now I have STD and LTD paid by work, you can pay a bit more to have them cover more of your salary though (right now we have 60% for free, because we can live on 60% of my salary).

For life I have a full years salary for free. DH has 10K of spousal insurance. We have no kids so if DH died I need money for a burial and some to take off some work. But my salary is the majority of the money so financially I would be ok. DH gets a full year salary for my burial and then enough to last him while he figures out what he is going to do now since he couldn't live like we do currently on his salary.

Once we have kids we plan to both get independent life policies (mine because I'll be the sole income, his because without him I would have to pay for day care) and up the STD and LTD since without his income and with the extra person we would need more of my salary.

 

[jt'smom]

my opinion won't be popular, but it is based on my personal experience with a work based ltd policy that i had been paying for through payroll deductions. i think it is a total ripoff because it is not GUARANTEED. when i was dx'd with a brain tumor and subsequently disabled by both my tumor and surgery, i had to file for my ltd after all of my family leave and std expired. i was denied! i appealed with a ton of supporting information from my doctors and was denied again with the statement being that yes i had the condition, but the insurance company's doctors did not feel that it warranted ltd. ironically, i was approved by social security disability less than 6 weeks after i applied on my own, without using a lawyer. if you know anything about social security disability, you know this is virtually unheard of at any rate, i did retain a lawyer and sued the insurance company and received a settlement equal to the amount of 6 months's payments. this number was derived by the fact that once you begin ltd with a private insurance company, they will require you to file for social security disability once you have completed the mandated 6 months waiting period of becoming disabled.

i don't know if i was an isolated case, but i will say that this was a major insurance company, and while i was shocked that i was declined, my lawyers didn't find it at all surprising.