May Is Disability Awareness Month

There is no better time than right now — this May — to help your clients protect their paychecks. Each May, the LIFE Foundation coordinates Disability Insurance Awareness Month (DIAM) to get people thinking about what would happen if an accident or injury left them unable to work and earn a paycheck.

Disability insurance is the most overlooked of the major types of insurance, but it is arguably one of the most important. Of course, most people think a disabling illness or injury will never happen to them. But according to a LIFE survey, a person has a 3 in 10 chance of suffering a disabling illness or injury that would keep them out of work for three months or more during their career. How many of your clients could go for an extended period of time without their paycheck? The answer, most likely, is not many.

That’s why, each May, the LIFE Foundation focuses the industry’s attention on this critical issue during DIAM. The theme for this year’s campaign is Protect Your Paycheck — something that will resonate with everyone who works and earns a paycheck.

The DIAM campaign is the perfect time to reach out to clients and prospects about their need for disability insurance. The LIFE Foundation has a wide range of free resources in its turnkey Producer Kit (www.lifehappens.org/diamkit). Here are some of the things you can find and resources you can use:

• A marketing guide that will help you pull together a quick and effective campaign
• PDF flyers, including a realLIFEstory, that you can email or print and mail to clients or prospects
• Disability videos you can imbed on your own website
• A social media plan with prewritten Facebook or Twitter posts for each working day of the month
• A LIFE microsite — www.protectyourpaycheck.org — dedicated to disability insurance that you can send clients and prospects to for more information
• Third-party disability insurance materials from LIFE’s online catalog at www.lifehappens.org/ditools.

It’s not too late — check out the toolkit and get started. For any questions, contact Jaimee C. Niles, vice president of communications for the LIFE Foundation, at (202) 464-5000, ext. 4450 or at [email protected].