I wonder that too like if i get in a car accident or something and i get disabled good to know there would be other options. I know teaching or administration at a dental school is always there
some dentists buy disability insurance
there are 2 types of disability insurance- personal and office overhead
personal you can pay for one of two ways- pre-tax or post-tax
pre-tax, your office/corporation pays and deducts it from income as an office expense
post-tax, you pay it personally with your earnings
the difference is, if it is paid pre-tax, you are taxed on the payouts, if post-tax, your payouts are tax-free
personal usually covers you for the rest of your life with a monthly payment
office overhead pays your staff and expenses while you are disabled, it will even pay for a substitute dentist to cover your office
office overhead usually pays off for a set duration, usually a year or two, so that if you are permanently disabled, it keeps your office going and patients taken care of while you are trying to sell your office
it gets more complicated though- there are group plans and personal plans
group plans are cheaper, but generally have less benefits
personal plans have better benefits, but are way more expensive
and then there are waiting periods before the benefits kick in
some as little as one month, others 3 months
the cost difference is a lot, though
you can structure it so that you have a cheaper group plan that kicks in after 1 month and a more expensive personal plan that kicks in after 3 month
to make it worse, there is a definition called "own occ"
this means your occupation
the highest classification (lowest risk group) professions get "own occ" coverage
this means that you get paid as long as you cannot do your occupation (clinical dentistry)
groups that have more claims lose this
so if your profession does not have "own occ", you lose your benefits if you do any job that earns you money (well it's a sliding scale, the more money you make, the less benefits you receive)
if you have "own occ", you can teach, work for an insurance company, do research, etc and get paid while still receiving full benefits
in the late 80s and early 90s, a bunch of dentists made claims of carpal tunnel and back/neck problems after getting disability policies
since these are self-reported conditions (like whiplash), they are more easily faked
so for a while, dentistry lost "own occ" status
I believe it has had it back for quite some time though
as with any insurance, the earlier you get it (younger, healthier) the cheaper your policy is
your rates stay the same, although you can buy riders to increase your coverage as your income increases
there are also riders that you can pay for that raise your payout every year as a cost of living increase
when you first start out, you don't have to prove your income, so you can actually get quite a lot of coverage right away
probably more than you wanted to know
but there you have it...
