Voluntary group disability insurance program designers at Hartford (NYSE:HIG) are talking about coming out with products with more flexibility.

If consumers are going to choose whether or not to buy, and pay for, their own income protection at the worksite, then they might want to have a say in determining variables such as what the benefit amount would be, how long the worker would have to be disabled to begin collecting benefits, and how long the benefit stream might last.

Of course, in the real world of insurance, and especially in the real world of an intentional malingering/subconscious malingering-prone product such as disability insurance, giving the insured even a little ability to customize a policy can be tricky.

In blog world, it's nice to imagine a situation in which Somebody Else in another, infinitely wealthy universe would take care of the claims costs, and adverse selection concerns would not matter.

If I could get my benefits in blog world, these are some of options I'd like to see in a voluntary disability package:

  • The option to receive 6 months of intense psychological counseling if I ever see another chirpy television commercial for a motorized wheelchair, with the sense that the wheelchair providers are rushing us toward a state of catastrophic Medicare insolvency to give seniors who can walk just fine a new way to go around the block to buy a loaf of bread.
  • An option, with fiscal-cliff-related triggers, to have Aflac let a flock of ducks loose in the House.
  • An option, with fiscal-cliff-related triggers, to make President Obama start from a golf tee 100 extra yards away from all relevant holes he ever plays again in his life if he is the proximate cause of another fiscal-cliff debacle.
  • A radio news leave provision, to insert 10 minutes of leave into my morning work schedule when I ought to get up but something funny is on the air. Maybe the insurer could call it a "laughter-based wellness" benefit.

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