Disability Insurance Observer: Cross-selling

Bill collectors might hound patients over unpaid medical bills. But, if the patients are healthy enough to keep working, chances are that the patients have a shot at keeping their houses or apartments.

If you are too disabled to work, and you haven’t yet gotten through the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) qualification maze — or you live in a community in which the $1,100 average monthly SSDI benefit is barely enough to cover the cost of property taxes and utility bills — you could easily end up on the sidewalk. It looks to me as if living on the sidewalk is probably worse for people’s health than going without regular preventive care.

Disability insurance is not exactly an infant product. “Friendly societies” have been offering income protection arrangements for centuries. Modern insurers have been selling commercial income protection products for more than 100 years.

Of course, the federal government has sharply limited the ability of agents to sell Medicare supplement policies or Medicare Advantage plans alongside other types of insurance products, such as prescription drug plans or annuities. It looks as if that pattern could continue in the exchange program.

But it seems as if, whether the exchanges help or hurt the U.S. health insurance system, someone could at least try to use them to educate consumers with jury-rigged finances about the existence of disability insurance and other bread-and-butter personal protection products.

See also:

• Disability Insurance Observer: Extras
• Disability Insurance Observer: The Fed and savers
• Fixing up homes: An LTC claim prevention strategy?