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As an advocate for disability insurance education for healthcare professionals, I want to review some common obstacles that prevent women from securing complete policies that protect your income and your family.

We can all learn a thing or two from our peers about how to make better choices or change bad behaviors. The following are serious obstacles to securing coverage that can be easily avoided.

Part of what PearsonRavitz does is help create realistic expectations. As a physician, I know it’s uncomfortable enough to discuss things like weight and smoking habits with patients, let alone with the mirror. Healthy and unhealthy habits play an important role in determining policy costs.

BMI: If you’re at either end of the spectrum, there’s a chance that your coverage will be more expensive.. Your premium will go up if you’re overweight or underweight. Worse, you can actually “weigh out” of insurance. If you’re over or under a certain weight, you may be uninsurable by the traditional carriers.

PearsonRavitz has been actively trying to get insurance carriers to adjust their BMI standards, as we all know that the original charts were not based on women.

Smoking: All insurance companies have “smoker rates” that can as much as double your cost of coverage. To remove that smoker rate, you need to prove through testing (urine and blood tests at your own cost) that you have been nicotine- and tobacco-free for 12 months.

At the end of the day, the most important thing you can do for your policy costs is to take care of yourself and your body. Please stay healthy!

Securing disability insurance policies before you get pregnant can be key to getting covered for future pregnancies. 

This is because many carriers are quick to exclude coverage for “abnormal outcomes of pregnancy.” As an OB/GYN, I know just how many things can happen during pregnancy and while trying to get pregnant.

Physicians may find it shocking, but it’s true: situations as common as infertility workups and recurrent miscarriages qualify as an “abnormal outcome” and disqualify a woman from future pregnancy coverage. A single miscarriage in the previous twelve months will trigger a pregnancy exclusion for at least the next twelve months.

Another reason: Cesarean sections. Historically, C-sections were seen as an abnormal outcome of pregnancy, and if you had one, there would be an automatic pregnancy exclusion written into your policy. This is something PearsonRavitz has worked hard to change. 

Cesarean deliveries are standard, for example, for breech presentation and multiples in many hospitals. Yet, insurance companies consider them “abnormal.”

We have tackled inclusion of cesarean sections with the six traditional insurance carriers throughout our years. We have convinced a few of them to look at WHY moms have C-sections — and have gotten women future pregnancy coverage when they did not previously qualify.

That has taken a lot of effort, and in general, carriers tend to look for reasons not to cover future pregnancy disability claims.

So, although we are sorry to say it: Please secure a policy before your first attempt at trying to get pregnant!

At PearsonRavitz, we started out by specializing in helping physicians on their quest to secure the best possible disability and life insurance coverage.

As a physician, the timing of when you get your policy is critical. Many physicians wait until they become an attending to purchase disability insurance. We hear two common rationales: “I’m waiting until I make more money,” or “I can’t afford it during training.”

There are several problems here:

• Waiting until you make more money will potentially cost you more money in the long run.
• You may not qualify for the same benefit rates as an attending as you would have qualified for as a resident/fellow.
• Once you finish with training, carriers take both your income and group benefits into account when determining your qualifying benefit.

In fact, that happened to me: I was that attending!

I got my first disability insurance policy after completing my residency training. I did not know what I did not know. Not only did I qualify for a lower monthly benefit, but it ended up being more expensive. Once you cross the threshold of being an attending and attempt to secure disability insurance, many more factors are considered in producing your monthly benefit amount.

Out of training, the carriers look at your salary and any group long-term disability insurance benefits you receive from your employer to dictate coverage amounts.. By contrast, when you’re still a trainee, everyone qualifies for the same amount through a resident package, which all carriers provide, and most at a discounted rate.

Additionally, group benefits often have inferior or nebulous language (there’s no standard of language in insurance as there is in medicine). Often, they are considered taxable income. Most are not portable if you switch jobs. And, most are not truly specialty specific by the definitions of own occupation and total disability.

On the other hand, when you opt for private insurance, you don’t have to worry about paying taxes on the benefit and you can keep your policy wherever you go. But that’s another topic (and luckily one we’ve already covered here).

What I really want you to take away: You can afford a quality policy while in training.

You don’t need to secure the maximum benefit to secure your future insurability, and in many ways, you may be eligible for discounts that are trainee-dependent. It’s best to explore options that suit your particular needs, and your budget is a big part of that. We can individually tailor policies to fit any budget. Whatever your specific situation, we can help you secure exactly what you need.

Locking in rates at a younger age will potentially save you thousands over the policy’s life. Please, do not wait!

I know that it may not seem like a big deal to ask a friend or colleague to write you a quick script or to get a hallway consult for a problem.

You’re busy, I get it. You don’t have time to see your own physician, or more problematic, you don’t have one.

The issue here arises during underwriting, and not to scare you, but it’s an incredibly intrusive process. You may have to give a urine sample, a blood sample, you definitely have to answer a million medical questions a million times, and there is a script check usually going back five to seven years.

I sometimes joke that there are no secrets from insurance companies. It’s amazing, really, how knowledgeable they can get with our histories.

Depending on your answers to the questions and the results of the prescription check, carriers can request medical records. When there are no records to support medications or treatments, it creates a big problem.

Some of the red flag drugs are antidepressants, anxiolytics, sleep agents, weight-loss drugs, ADHD meds, migraine medications, high dose steroids, and infertility meds . If these drugs pop up, there needs to be a paper trail. You do not want to look as if you’re hiding anything. Most carriers that can not match records to medications or see self-prescribing will not cover you for at least two years. 

Please, if you are currently engaging in either of these behaviors, stop! Establish care with a physician that can monitor you and keep you out of trouble.

In our time as insurance advisors and advocates, we have worked with thousands of physicians nationwide.

At PearsonRavitz, we are on a mission to protect physicians by offering them customized private disability policies that will support them and their families.

The hardest part of our job, by far, is telling clients that they can’t get the insurance they deserve because of something easily preventable.

Please take care of yourself. Get insurance as soon as possible.

And if you have any questions about these topics or any other concerns about disability insurance, schedule a consultation with a PearsonRavitz advisor. That’s why we are here.

Attribution: Stephanie Pearson, MD, FACOG

CEO and Insurance Advisor

Stephanie Pearson, MD, FACOG brings the experience of a physician into the disability and life insurance market. Injured in the prime of her career, the Board Certified OB/GYN took an unexpected journey to becoming an advocate and advisor for physician insurance.