Short-term disability question

[Fern]

My company is offering a few new benefits, and i'm interested in one of them, short-term disability that is paid for by paycheck deductions by me, but at a group rate.

Does this coverage and price seem reasonable to you? If you already have disability insurance, I'd love to get your opinion, based on what your plan is like.

It provides coverage for accident or illness. There is no waiting period for accident coverage to begin, while for illness, I've chosen the 14 day waiting period (as this lowers the price). It's a maximum 3 month benefit paying $1800 a month (This would basically cover my mortgage/property taxes plus a portoin of my recurring monthly utility expenses and groceries. (Pre-existing conditions you'd have to have a year of coverage before it would pick that up.) For this i would pay $10.35 a week/$538 a year.

So, looking at it one way, you'd have to pay into the plan for more than 3 years to equal 1 month's worth of disablity payments, should something occur.

I have savings that would cover me, but buying into this plan would give me greater peace of mind that, should the unexpected happen, I wouldn't have to dig into my savings in a big way.

I already had a situation last year where i could have used this, when i had to have surgery and i was told my recovery time would be 4-6 weeks, but after using up vacation and sick time, i was so reluctant to go without pay that i returned to work after 3 weeks, which was kind of pushing it and very tiring.

What do you think, worth it? My typical minimal monthly expenses run around $3,000 a month, and I could opt for a $2400 monthly payout, or increase either payout option to 6 months instead of 3, but of course it raises the weekly contribution rate.

I make $56K a year, and what with 15% taken out for 401k and other deductions for my flexible spending acct., there's not much left in my net paycheck, so this seems to be the doable choice.

[dmontngrey]

This sounds reasonable based on the new plan we are currently rolling out at my office. For example:
Someone age 50-59 would pay 10.98/wk for a 400.00 weekly benefit.
Someone under age 40 would pay 10.28/wk for a 450.00 weekly benefit.
Someone age 40-49 would pay 10.27/wk for a 500.00 weekly benefit.
These are just examples of the rates that fall closest to what you are looking at paying.
The policy we are rolling out is "guaranteed issued", so there is no medical check up or medical history required. It DOES have a 12 month pre-exisiting condition clause though. If you make it 12 months in the plan without any issues, the pre-exisiting condition clause goes out the window.
Obviously choosing a plan like this is a very personal choice, but I hope this gives you something to compare it to.

[disneysteve]

I think short-term disability should be covered out of your own emergency fund. That's why you always hear the advice that you should maintain an EF of 3-6 months worth of living expenses.

Insurance for long term disability, however, is a different story. I would definitely look into that type of coverage. I've had my LTD policy for about 17 years. I've never had to use it, thankfully, but it is there if something should happen to me.