Principal Own Occupation Disability Insurance

[climbhigh]

Hello All -

Just wanted to check and make sure my insurance agent is telling me the correct info. I bought two disability insurance policies on myself, one from Ameritas and one from Principal. The Ameritas policy clearly has own occupation language (...if you are a doctor in a recognized specialty... etc), but the Principal policy doesn't have that. I do have the "Regular Occupation" rider with Principal, but even then it is quite broad and just says "your occupation" at the time of disability and nothing specific about medical specialty ("Your occupation"..."means the profession or occupation, not a specific job, you were actively working in"). My agent says that is just how Principal "does it" and that they don't have a more specific rider for medical specialists. Does anyone else have DI with Principal, and if so, does your policy read the same way? Just want to make sure I've got the right stuff.

 

 

[Scott at MD Financial Services]

If you have Rider HH757 with Principal you have a true own specialty definition.  Tell the agent to go back the company and get the collateral material explaining this rider in more detail.  The agent should have that and should have known not only what that material is but where to find it.

[climbhigh]

Perfect - I do have Rider HH 757. The policy that was given to me has a single page that explains what the Regular Occupation rider is (HH 757); is that the collateral information you are referring to, or is it more substantial than that?

 

Thanks for the help!

[Scott at MD Financial Services]

The page you have just states the information about the rider which does make it a true own specialty policy but Principal also has a few good brochures that explain how the rider works in real life.  If you want to PM me your email I will email them to you or you can go back to your agent and tell them to ask for supporting brochures for the features you have in your policy.

[CFEonline]

How about the HH771 CA rider, transitional occupation. I was told that essentially was an own-occupation rider, where the occupation is the usual activities of the job you were doing at the time of disability, with the caveat that if while disabled from your own occupation, you pursued a different occupation and made more than you previously made, you would no longer be paid the benefits. Would you say that is accurate, or is it really not an own-occupation description?

[Scott at MD Financial Services]

The way a transitional rider behaves at claim time is that they will pay you 100% of the benefit until your post disability earning plus 100% of your benefit from this policy and any other benefit (SSDI, No-fault, workman's comp, etc.) you are receiving start to exceed your pre-disability income.  What this means is the more you made pre-disability the better that option is because it is that much harder to find a 2nd career that is making a large income that when combined with all of post disability earnings would equal your pre-disability earnings.  It certainly is not own occupation as one would truly define it.