Today we’re getting serious about something many of us don’t think about. We’re going to discuss how prepared you actually are for a serious illness.
I first want to note that I don’t sell ANY type of insurance or other financial products. So this post is not about selling you on that, it’s about educating you on what you need to make sure you’re covered in the event of a crazy emergency that does happen.
To start, I’m going to lay out 2 scenarios that are rare but possible. They are very unfortunate, but they are real stories of real people.
What if you woke up tomorrow unable to see?
I know of someone that had near perfect vision his entire life. He did work that required him to see well like most of us do. He had a family, friends and a really good job that paid him quite well. In short, his life was headed in the right direction and he was making progress.
But, one day all that changed. He woke up with blurred vision and couldn’t seem to shake it. After dealing with it for a couple days, he got into a doctor and was pretty quickly diagnosed with a rare condition called uveitis. It’s a very treatable condition if caught early but can lead to complete vision loss if left unattended.
What this meant for him was a long road that would change his life. Over the next few years, he would lose everything except his family and have to rebuild a new career, new friends and a new life.
While it’s been a hard road, I’m thankful to say that he has remained a faithful servant of Christ and does his best to help others as much as possible. He is still dealing with some of the issues from his condition, but he won’t let it shut his life down.
What if you woke up deaf?
Much like the first story, I know of someone that woke up one day in their early 20’s with muffled hearing. Up to this point, her hearing had been fine and she lived a normal life, was married and even having children. However, this was a complete turn of events for her. Over the next few months, she was diagnosed with a condition that eventually leads to complete deafness with no way to stop it.
While this obviously changed her life pretty drastically, she was able to direct her attention to building her business where she is quite successful today. Nearly 20 years has passed since that first muffled morning and she is now on the path to hearing again thanks to some technological breakthroughs.
The point of these stories
These are two rare but possible scenarios that could happen to any of us. These two completely healthy young people just woke up one day with something that would change their life forever. But there is one thing that could have helped their situations quite a bit: proper long term disability insurance.
This is something many of us don’t think about because it’s traditionally sold to older people who might become disabled due to old age. However, if you are 30, you’re 12 times more likely to become disabled than to die before age 65. And there are countless stories like these where it would have been very beneficial to catch the medical bills and protect from income loss.
The thing about insurance to remember is it’s not an investment. It will cost you money, but if you need it, it’s well worth it to have the right things in place.
Get Disability Insurance Now
Now, I’m not going into all the details here, that’s something I do with my clients on a personal level but here is the gist. You need to get “own-occ” disability insurance to cover you as the owner of the occupation. That’s literally all it means. So if you have something happen where you can’t do your job, they will pay you while you get it fixed. If you become permanently disabled for doing all work, they’ll pay you for life.
So in the case of the man with uveitis, own-occ disability insurance would have paid him for up to 2 years since he could no longer do the job he was doing. After that, since it was treated, he would have to switch careers and the insurance would stop paying. But it would have saved him from losing everything he had. The thing is, it’s typically inexpensive, but it will vary depending on the type of work you do. The more high-risk, the higher the insurance will be.
I hope that encourages you to get the insurance you need to protect you. Insurance is all about passing risk to them so make sure you have the right thing in place if/when the time comes. If you need help, I’m here for you.