Federal regulators, state regulators, insurance brokers, employers and insurance trade journal reporters are struggling to cope with the mountains of information about the looming Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) changes that are oozing out of the Internet.
The Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (LIFE) is trying to jump up above the PPACA mud flood and remind consumers, employers, and even regulators and insurance producers that, PPACA or no PPACA, workers still need to protect their ability to earn an income against the risk of disability.
LIFE is helping insurers, producers and others run the seventh annual Disability Insurance Awareness Month marketing campaign this month.
The group has posted updated disability planning sales kit information at http://www.lifehappens.org/diamkit. In addition to flyers, the new kit includes videos and social-media content.
LIFE also has developed disability risk infographics and bits of disability information presented in “infosnacks.”
The content developers worked to create information chunks that insurance producers and benefits specialists can spread through Facebook walls, Twitter channels and personal blogs, LIFE says.
LIFE also has created an online Disability Insurance Quiz App.
John Nichols, president-elect of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), will be the awareness month campaign spokesman.
When Nichols was 32, he suffered a water skiing accident that left him paralyzed from his neck to his toes.
Nichols used disability insurance to help finance six years of rehabilitation. He recovered so well that he now runs marathons.
LIMRA, an insurance industry marketing think tank, is supporting the campaign by developing a disability “Myths and Facts” background paper based on data from the Council for Disability Awareness (CDA) and the Social Security Administration.
One of the messages LIMRA is trying to spread is that the “best time to buy disability insurance” is “the moment you start earning a paycheck.”