BusinessWeek had an online article this week urging people to get disability insurance.  It touched on the no no of touching retirement accounts.

As the article stated:  “Digging into retirement accounts before retiring is a big no-no. Americans should heed two methods to safeguard savings: set aside a liquid cushion and buy disability insurance.”

Also the article went on to say:  “If you have the right disability protection in place, then you won’t have to worry about liquidating or discontinuing your retirement savings because of a debilitating injury or illness.”

The best endorsements for disability insurance are the people who have collected claims and saved their financial lives.  An interesting survey was reported in U.S. Insurance News.

Here are some of the interesting facts:

• Most claimants said they did not have any problems with the claims process, and of those who did, the majority had their problem resolved satisfactorily.
• While disability insurance carriers surely like to hear of these approval rates, even better is the acknowledgement from claimants that their disability coverage prevented them from suffering a financial hardship—a key selling point for disability insurance carriers
• Accordingly, 96 of claimants said it is at least somewhat likely that they would have suffered financial hardship had they not received disability insurance benefits after suffering a disability. Two-thirds (67 percent) said it is very or extremely likely that they would have suffered financial hardship.

The well known online and offline financial publication, Kiplinger’s, today in an online article entitled, “Your Essential Emergency Kit” to make sure you have disability insurance.

Here’s a quote from the article: 

“You’ll also want disability insurance, just in case something happened to you that prevented you from working for a time. Many people get some form of disability insurance through their job, but you’ll want to make sure it’s enough.”

The article is a good one including other tips for preparing for emergencies including what to do with important documents, setting up emergency kits and more.  I recommend it.