Ep 007 – Getting Disability Insurance in Residency

Summary: Trevor’s Background on Disability Insurance [0:03:34] What Trevor Did On Getting Disability Insurance [0:09:04] Catastrophic Plan – What Is This? [0:11:01] Importance Of Own Occupation Rider [0:12:54] Future Increase Option Rider/Guaranteed Benefit Update Rider [0:14:03] What Makes A Good Insurance Company? [0:22:31] Why Will You Get A Cost Of Living Or Inflation Rider [0:28:06] Insurance As Part of A Financial Plan [0:33:30] Diversifying Risk: Two Insurance Companies [0:36:15] We Can Help You Get Disability Insurance At Financial MD [0:43:45]     Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.   Jon: Hey everyone! Welcome to the eighth episode of the Financial MD Show. Hope you’ve been having a good time listening through all the episodes and learning stuff. Today, we’ve got a fan favorite. This is a highly requested topic both through emails and correspondence, and after getting requests on podcast topics as well as just getting straight up questions in the webinars and lectures and things that we do. Disability insurance is what we’re talking about today, which is great, because I’m knowledgeable on it, Trevor is knowledgeable on it, and we’ve had some good and bad experiences, but there’s a lot of mixed information out there and we hoped to straighten some of that out today. We’ll give you some tips on how to buy it, how to shop for, what to look for, what not to do, and ultimately how do you feel you’ve done well and just protect your finances. Without further ado, here’s today’s show.   Jon: Obviously, there is a lot to talk about when it comes to disability insurance. Huge topic of conversation. When we do our workshops, all the time, disability insurance comes up almost without fail and rightly so. I think as financial planners at Financial MD here, we’re obviously big believers that that’s a big part of a financial plan. Today, I wanted us to riff a little bit on. Let’s talk about shady insurance agents or shady insurance practices a little bit and what to do if you’re just flat out, “I don’t want to necessarily pick this one person to help me find my options. I’m just going to go around educate myself and figure out which shops to go to get disability insurance.” Trevor, that’s what we’re talking to today. Part of the reason that we met is I think you did that more than anybody else that I had known up to that point, or residents anyway as far as taking initiative, getting to know the disability insurance world and saying, “I’m going to go figure this out.” Let’s start with that. Give me some background on what you did when you decided, “I need to get disability insurance.” How did that whole process even start?   Trevor’s Background on Disability Insurance [0:03:34]   Trevor: That’s a good question. When did I first look at it? I think I looked it up in medical school and I misunderstood and thought that I couldn’t get it at the time because I didn’t have income yet so I waited and start residency which is a bummer. I think I mentioned before that from lots of studying, of course, occasionally, your neck gets a little sore. You’re looking down all the time, whatever you were reading and you didn’t take a break,