Supplemental Disability Insurance, would you get it?
August 3, 2006
Young Guns touched on a subject I’d been contemplating for a while. Our secretary was waving around a piece of paper for Supplemental Disability Plan. We’re all involuntarily enrolled in the Basic Plan. If you enroll in the Supplemental Plan, then the university pays for the Long term Disability Plan.
| Disability Plan | Benefit amount | Duration |
| Basic Disability Plan | 70% of gross pay up to a maximum of $1,076 per week | 52 weeks |
| Supplemental Disability Plan | 100% of gross pay | One week for each year of employment up to a maximum of 10 weeks |
| 80% of gross pay | For remainder of 52 weeks | |
| Long Term Disability Plan | 70% of gross pay | Until age 65 or death |
Considering I am the primary earner with a steady income, I probably really should look into enrolling in the Supplemental Plan – I think the rate is 2% of current income? Part of me balks at this but I guess having about 100 hours of vacation and 90 hours of sick time isn’t really what you’d consider being prepared for any sort of long term problems. I keep debating if it’s worth losing another 2% of my much needed cash flow ….
I guess for me it would depend on how much the plans would cost you to buy outside of work. The long term disability plan is really crucial for people our age, a lot more than life insurance. Your basic disability plan is pretty good though. 2% sounds like a pretty good price, at least at our young salaries =) Do you have to pay for your involuntary enrollments now?
Yes, we do get to pay for our involuntary Basic Disability. The only thing the university will pay for is the Long-term and that’s only if we pay for the supplemental.
It seems like the long-term would cover the same thing as the basic, though, so they would drop that if you signed up for the supplemental? Cause that might be a good deal.
My assumption was that the basic would cover you for the 52 weeks and the long-term would pick up from there on out until the end of coverage at age 65 or death.
I just checked with our secretary and she said we still pay for both, “but it’s like 29 cents per pay period.”
I’m not sure I believe that because I really don’t want to believe I make so little š