To buy insurance, or not to buy insurance
fionn_mcgreggor's mom is an insurance agent and found me some new, great coverage. Since I've got 2 new instructors just completing their training this session, and 2 more about to start training next week, I was looking at having to pay $200 per instructor for liability insurance. Including myself, that's about $1,000. But she found me a policy that for only $386 a year will cover up to 10 instructors. I'm set.I am, however, conflicted about the disability insurance I feel like I need. If I so much as sprain a finger, it could keep me from teaching and then I'd have thousands of dollars in monthly business expenses that I can't pay. I only want a short term policy and she found me one that will give me 2 years of coverage. So if I'm in a car accident or twist an ankle or something, my bills can be paid for up to 2 years while I heal.
Here's the problem. The policy would pay $3,770 a month, but the cost to me would be $109 per month for the policy. And since I'm already paying $330 a month for health insurance, I'm not feeling like I want to pay another $100 on top of that. Her policy also has some strange wording about working any job I'm qualified for before they will pay me. So if I'm injured, they may refuse to pay if they feel like I could get a job somewhere answering phones, while I heal. I'm torn at this point. Even with all 5 instructors teaching one class per week, I don't know if the business can pay its bills unless I'm teaching the workshops and upper level classes. But my most experienced instructor is learning next session to teach level 2. So maybe once she can do that, the business can continue without me while she does that. I don't know for sure. So I'm not sure what to do. There don't seem to be a lot of short term disability policies out there (everyone wants to sell long term). So shopping around for a better deal might not be an option.
I would think you especially would need it since you also don't have anyone else who handles your paperwork, banking, etc. If you were laid up/incapacitated in a way that prevented you from doing the 1000+ things you do a day to run your business (and home) would those people be able to run things without you for any period of time? (Not to be gloom and doom, but that's the reality.)
For the disability insurance, I don't know enough to offer an informed opinion. For instance, I don't know if the "must take any other work you are qualified for" provision is standard to most or all policies or is somethign unique to that policy. That is worth investigating further, I'd think.
My only advice is to take the time to shop around a bit. It's not like this policy will go away if you don't sign up tommorrow, right?
Whatever policy you get, only count on what is there *in writing.* Don't rely on the insurance agents interpertation of the policy, especially if it differs from what the wording in the policy seems to state. Ask for clarificatin from somone higher up in the chain then the agent trying to sell you the policy if you need to.
Hope this helps.