Guest Post: Supplemental Disability Insurance for Active Duty Physicians
(EDITOR’S NOTE: While we have great benefits in the military, one area where our benefits fall short is disability insurance. If we were to be disabled on active duty, our disability pay would not reflect our physician bonuses and higher income. For years I struggled to find supplemental disability insurance. I used the American Medical Association plan because they’d give me up to $2500/month of additional coverage and it was all I could find. That was until I contacted Andy Borgia at DI4MDs.com. He was able to get me the amount of coverage I needed when many, many other people couldn’t. For some reason many disability insurers don’t want to cover active duty. Below is a post from Andy about supplemental disability insurance.)
May is disability insurance awareness month and also the time of the year a number of physicians transition into new positions due to the completion of most training programs July 1st. As a result, it is an excellent time to examine protecting the most valuable asset any physician has, their ability to practice and earn an income. Whether you are a military physician with a number of years left to serve, soon to be exiting the military or currently in a residency/fellowship program, it would be prudent make certain you are adequately protected in the event you become disabled and unable to practice due to a sickness or accident. Statistics, which can be found all over the internet, including our site, indicate approximately 1 in 3 people will be disabled during their working career, which can be the cause of financial ruin. Disability insurance for physicians is universally recommended.
Being active duty military, you may think you are already adequately protected. This is far from accurate since military disability benefits only cover base pay and do not include incentive, special or bonus pay, allowances or private earned income. These extra forms of income usually provide the majority of a military physician’s pay and should and can be protected. If you are about to leave the military, the day after you are discharged, any military disability coverage will cease and you will be completely unprotected. Establishing an individual disability insurance policy can take up to 4 months, since medical records must be obtained so to be adequately protected requires advanced planning.
To make certain you and your family are protected, establish an individual disability insurance
policy. The individual policy contractual provisions should protect you in your chosen medical specialty for the entire benefit period, provide both total and partial disability benefits, allow for an increase in coverage upon completion of duty without additional medical requirements, and be noncancelable and guaranteed renewable (policy cannot be cancelled, premiums changed, coverage altered by the insurance company). Residents and fellows may be eligible for discounted polices if established prior to completion of training and should be taken advantage of.
Contact an experienced insurance agent that represents a number of companies and is familiar with contractual provisions and underwriting procedures, it does make a difference, to explore your
options. Please visit our website www.DI4MDS.com to obtain our Military Physician Disability Insurance Guide. This will provide an educational first step.
For a complementary personal disability insurance consultation please contact me directly (Andy G Borgia CLU, andyb@di4mds.com, 888-934-4637).
Joel Schofer's Career Planning Blog 
June 2, 2017 at 17:33
[…] [Editor’s Note: This is a guest post/update from the company that was able to get me supplemental disability insurance (DI), which can be a challenge when you are Active Duty. I have no current financial relationship with them and they did not pay for this post, although in the past I received some restaurant gift cards when referring people to them. I asked them to provide it so they could explain recent changes in the disability insurance market for Active Duty personnel. If you want to read about DI, you can go to my Personal Finance page or some other posts like this one or this one.] […]
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