Face it, a divorce is not much fun, however it is a reality that many adults eventually face. If you are currently involved in a divorce, have you thought about how to protect any alimony payments in the event your ex-spouse becomes disabled? Some of the best divorce attorneys are now requiring an individual disability insurance policy be purchased any time there is alimony involved in a divorce settlement.
Think about it, you stand about a 30% chance of suffering a long term disability between now and the age of 65 that will last for 90 days or longer. The average length of a disability is 3.2 years, so what would happen to an alimony payment if the person responsible for making that monthly payment was unable to work for an extended period of time because of a sickness or injury?
There are several major types of disability insurance in the market today. One can have group LTD available through work, a plan through a professional association, or an individually owned disability insurance policy that a person bought directly from a major insurance company. Hands down, an individually owned policy is going to pay more benefits to people in more claims scenarios. They are also going to be a little more expensive than group LTD or an association plan. If you want to make sure that your alimony payment is protected even if your ex-spouse becomes disabled from an unexpected stroke or car accident, make sure that part of the final divorce agreement has a provision that he or she must own and maintain an individual disability insurance policy for the entire duration of the alimony payments.
Over 90% of individual disabilities today are caused by illness, not because of accidents. Nobody sees a major illness coming unless they are highly over-weight and a chain smoker. Diabetes, heart disease, back and neck problems, cancer, stroke and MS are all major illnesses that just appear regardless of what you do for a living. I am sure you would feel bad about asking your ex-husband or ex-wife for your alimony payment after they were diagnosed with cancer, but that is what the individual policy is for in the divorce settlement.
It really is a small part of everything that you have to negotiate and think about during a divorce, but it can have such a large impact on your financial world should one of you become disabled later on. You can purchase an individual disability insurance on the web simply by doing a search for "disability insurance" on any major search engine, and the application process usually takes 2 months to complete from beginning to end.