How Much Disability Insurance is Enough?

Insurance, it's a vitally important part of every singlepayments, utility bills, food, other insurance costs, and
one of our lives yet at the same time it's hardlyabsolutely everything that you pay for in a given year..
understood by anybody. We have insurance for cars,The point of this exercise is to get a good idea of how
houses, medical, expenses, even life insurance in casemuch money you have right now, and how much you
we die, and disability insurance in case we are noneed to live off of in a given year so that you can
longer able to work to support ourselves.calculate how much will need if your income level
In fact the entire country here in America right nowsuddenly dropped to zero.
has just spent the last 3 to 6 months massivelyOne important thing to consider is inflation. All the things
debating health insurance all the way up to the highestthat you spend money on might cost a total of
levels in Congress were they've been trying to pass$60,000 a year let's say. That $60,000 is going to
the president's health insurance initiativesincrease next year because of inflation. To buy the
unsuccessfully. The point is, which ever side of thatsame exact things next year in my cost you $62,000.
debate you take, it's pretty incredible that so many ofSo when calculating how much you'll need in the future
us are spending so much time talking about it!be sure to calculate for inflation and if you don't know
I mean, it's insurance; the world is talking abouthow to do this search around the Internet and I'm sure
insurance! But I digress...you can find a free inflation calculator or at least learn
One thing I find though in all the talk of insurance on allthe simple mathematics involved which I won't get into
the different levels... one thing hardly ever gets talkedtoday.
about and that is disability insurance and that's a realAnother thing to consider is partial payment for work.
shame because disability insurance is one of the mostDoes your job include partial payments in the case of
important insurances that you will ever need.your disability? If so be sure to calculate that in to the
It covers us in case we get disabled and can no longerequation.
work. It pays all our bills, and supports our families, andAlso an important thing to consider is increases over
makes sure our kids are able to go to college and thattime in your expenditures. Your expenditures may be
we can pay for. In short it's the most important$60,000 a year this year but in six years your kid may
insurance I can think of and we hardly ever talk about.need to go to college, at which time your expenditures
So I for one would like to talk about it in this articlewill jump quite a bit. Be sure to take these sorts of
today and I'm going to do so by talking about howthings into consideration when you make your
much disability insurance is enough.calculations.
The first thing to do before you buy disability insuranceYou can get a fairly good idea of how much you're
is to completely assess your financial background. Yougoing to need in disability insurance just by doing these
need to list all your assets, including your house andsimple exercises I've discussed in this article. But at the
cars and cash and investment accounts everythingend of the day you really need to sit down with a
that has a value in can be liquidated. Next figure uplicensed professional insurance agent and go over the
how much money you need to live off of for eachnumbers with them in greater detail because they will
year. Make sure to calculate the cost of mortgagecatch things that you have missed.