Is It A Boy Or A Girl?

COLUMBIA, S.C., April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Bringing home a newborn baby can be a time of joy and excitement. But workers who don't have adequate short-term disability coverage to protect their paychecks while they're recovering from a baby's birth could face an overwhelming economic burden.

According to a tally of short-term disability insurance claims submitted to Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company in first quarter 2010, the top five most commonly reported disability claims are:

1. Maternity
2. Accidents
3. General sicknesses
4. Back pain
5. Digestive issues

Although health insurance can help pay for medical expenses related to a disability, it doesn't provide benefits to replace an employee's lost income. A voluntary short-term disability plan employees select and pay for at the workplace offers income protection if they become disabled from maternity, accidents, back pain or other causes.

Colonial Life's voluntary short-term disability plan is designed to help fill the gaps between the time when an employee's sick leave runs out and the company-provided long-term disability insurance kicks in. Top features and benefits to look for in a short-term disability plan are:

• Portability. Employees own the policy and can take it with them when they change employment. If their long-term disability plan is a group plan, they'll lose their coverage if they leave their company.
• Underwriting options. Guaranteed issue (no health questions) or fully underwritten.
• Variety of elimination and benefit periods that would work with an employer's sick leave plan.
• "Your job" definition. Some plans define total disability in terms of "your job" for the entire benefit period. The trigger point for the benefit payment is an insured's not being able to perform his or her own occupation. Other products may not pay "your job" benefits or may only pay "your job" benefits for a small time period, perhaps a year, then change to an "any job" definition.
• Partial benefits promote return to work. Some plans provide partial benefits to encourage employees who are totally disabled to come back to work earlier. This feature allows employees to ease back in to work and still receive a partial disability benefit. Disability plans without partial benefits may encourage employees to stay out on disability rather than coming back to work for part-time pay .

"Employees may think they're covered if they become disabled because they have long-term disability coverage from their employer," says Amy Criswell, director, product development at Colonial Life. "However, they may not realize there's a gap in coverage between sick leave and the long-term disability coverage, a gap that could be as much as six months. A voluntary short-term disability plan can help provide income to bridge the gap."

With May designated as Disability Insurance Awareness Month*, now is the opportune time to make sure company-provided benefits programs include voluntary short-term disability coverage.