To complicate matters, fewer employers offer disability insurance than life insurance, and it’s much harder to qualify for individual disability coverage than for individual life insurance. The bottom line is that if you’re working and you need your income to live, you need disability insurance.

 

When you apply for disability insurance, the insurance company will tell you if you have too much money to qualify for coverage. That’s because, unlike life insurance, you can’t buy all the disability insurance you may need. Usually, you can get a maximum of 60% of your monthly earned income before taxes. (Unearned or investment income does not qualify, because it presumably continues even if you are disabled.) The limit is in place so as not to deter people from returning to work