Health care workers know better than anyone how important – and how fleeting – good health can be. Illness, injuries and pregnancy complications can keep people from earning a paycheck. A medical crisis becomes a financial crisis, and the resulting stress creates another barrier to recovery.
Most doctors understand this, and they protect their paychecks with individual disability insurance. Medical residents should do the same. There’s no good reason to wait until their residency is over to get disability insurance, and there are many reasons to purchase early.
Agents: You can help protect their investment.
Medical residents have worked hard to get where they are. They spent four years earning an undergraduate degree, then another four in medical school. Now the hard work continues in the form of the residency.
In addition to time, medical residents have also invested a significant sum of money. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, first-year medical students at public medical schools paid an average of $36,755 for tuition, fees and insurance in the 2018-2019 school year. For private medical schools, the cost came to $59,076.
That’s just for one year out of four – and that’s on top of the cost for an undergraduate degree. Medical school students who graduated in 2018 had an average student loan debt of $196,520.
The time and money invested in a medical degree should pay off. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2018 median annual pay for physicians and surgeons is $208,000. But what happens when a disability prevents doctors from earning a paycheck? They’re left with a lot of debt and no income. That’s why they need disability insurance.
Help them take advantage of easy underwriting.
Medical residents aren’t earning the big bucks yet, but this doesn’t mean they should put off getting disability insurance.
For one thing, medical residents do have a paycheck to protect. According to Glassdoor, the average annual salary is about $56,000. They rely on that money, which means they need to protect it.
For another thing, getting coverage can be easier for medical residents than it is for doctors. They’re generally young and healthy, which makes it easier to get approved for good rates. They also qualify for simplified financial underwriting. Medical residents enjoy pre-approved benefits of up to $7,500 a month – without proof of income. If they wait until their residency is over, they’ll have to deal with financial underwriting requirements.
Medical residents may also qualify for special discounts, non-cancellable coverage and future purchase options that make it easy to increase coverage as their income grows.
They’ve invested a great deal in their career. Now it’s time to help them protect that investment with disability insurance.
Agents – Disability Insurance Services has programs to serve this booming niche. Download our Medical Residents’ Guide to learn more and contact the DIS sales team to take the next step!
