TYPES OF DISABILITY INSURANCE
• Long term care: This type of benefit provides protection if ever, at some
point in your life, you need to enter a long term care facility or receive special
medical care in your home. This coverage is available to people of almost
any age. Although we may think of long term care as a need for the elderly, a
severe illness or injury can incapacitate a young person. Consider your needs
if you couldn't look after yourself. There are benefits available, ranging from
basic to comprehensive. Some plans allow you to choose the type of care you
will receive, such as care in a facility or care by a family member. There are also
waiting periods for benefits, usually from 30 to 90 days after becoming
incapacitated. Typically, to qualify for long term care benefits, you must be
incapable of performing two or more activities of daily living (such as bathing,
dressing, feeding, etc.) or, you must be incapacitated because of a deteriorating
disease, such as Alzheimer's.
• Travel insurance: In Canada, your provincial health insurance plan looks
after your hospital and medical expenses and you rarely see a bill. But, once
you travel outside of Canada or even outside of your home province,
coverage under your provincial health insurance plan is limited, and only a
fraction of these expenses may be covered. Travel insurance is designed to
pay for certain unexpected costs that can happen when you are traveling. These
can include emergency hospital or medical costs, trip cancellation, lost baggage,
companion travel costs and accidental death insurance. But not all plans cover
all of these components. Check to see what your plan includes. For more
information about travel insurance coverage, see A Guide to Travel Health
Insurance available on our website at www.clhia.ca.
• Life insurance: Many life insurance policies have a disability waiver of
premium that lets you stop making premium payments while keeping your life
insurance coverage, if you are disabled for at least six months. For example,
if your group long term disability benefits and group life insurance are with the
same insurance company, there may be a provision that will automatically waive
the premiums for your life insurance once the long term disability benefits are
approved. Please review the details of your group life insurance plan.
There are other important benefits that may be attached to life insurance
policies. For example, an individually owned life insurance policy may also
have a disability income rider that replaces a portion of income. Many insurance
companies also offer, on a compassionate basis, living benefits in the form of
partial pre-payment of death benefits to life insurance policyholders who are
terminally ill. A few companies offer policy riders that allow for payments to
people who are not terminally ill but have certain other major medical problems.
Check with your insurance company to see what applies to your policy.
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