Your most important asset is your income.
Everything you do in life is based on the assumption that you have, and will continue to have, an income. You buy, you support, you invest, you need your income. A disability or illness can seriously harm or even destroy your financial situation. You must see the risk and what a disability or illness can do to your job, your business and your family. Your ability to buy things, raise your family, save for retirement , do all of the things that you enjoy, is all dependent on your income.
You could lose millions of dollars over a lifetime.
No matter what the odds, pretty much everyone agrees that if you become completely disabled, the loss of current and future income could be substantial. A person currently earning $8,000 per month at age 30 who becomes completely disabled (cannot work in any capacity) would stand to lose $3.36 million over his lifetime. Similarly, a 40 or 50 year old person earning that same amount monthly would lose $2.4 million or $1.44 million, respectively. Couple this loss of earnings with medical bills and possibly the cost of long-term or skilled nursing care, and your hard-earned savings and investments could be completely wiped out in a matter of months or years.
When disability strikes.
What happens when a disability strikes? Many think their spouse,family, or business can look after them. The facts speak very differently. Divorce is much higher among people with prolonged disabilities. It is extremely common for the healthy spouse of a disabled individual to themselves become disabled – usually due to the stress of dealing with the disabled individual. The financial impact of disability is often more than lost earnings. There’s often added costs and lost income by other members of your family and business. The stress that follows a disability is often a big contributing cause to numerous major physical ailments.
A disability (the inability to earn income) can happen in many different ways, including a heart attack, stroke, stress, Alzheimer’s, Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Diabetes, back problems, mental illness, depression, major accidents including car, job site, around the home, sports injuries, etc. the list goes on. Just pick up the newspaper and you will see story after story. Hospital waiting rooms are always busy. The sheer number of Physicians, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Chiropractors, Podiatrists, Physiotherapists, etc., available today goes to show t
hat disability is a real risk. The following chart below illustrates the most common disabilities being claimed.
