A vital part of the evaluation of disability insurance policies is how the partial or residual disability coverage works and is defined. Residual disability insurance is often a “rider” or extra benefit that one can add to a disability insurance policy. Some policies include it automatically.
The reason one would get this rider is that often a disability has a period of total disability followed by a gradual recovery that may include a return to work on a part-time basis. When this occurs there are two parts to disability recovery: medical and financial. If the medical recovery means that a person only can return to work on a part-time basis, then there is likely to be a financial loss resulting from part-time pay.
Almost all residual riders pay benefits for partial disabilities that result in a loss of income. But here’s the difference: The best residual riders will pay benefits even if the person receiving the claim is working full time, as long as he or she can demonstrate that a loss of income is a residual effect of the disability.
Getting this latter type of coverage is very important to fee-for-service professionals whose income may recover more slowly than their health. This happens when a claimant returns to full-time work, but payments for the services he or she performs lag months behind the point at which the service was provided and in some cases never return to prior income even though one’s health has returned.
At ProtectYourIncome.com, we can guide you through the different policies and how they work in relation to residual benefits. It could mean a big difference in the event of disability.