In a perfect world, all of your employees would have an emergency fund with 3-6 months of living expenses, as Dave Ramsey and other financial advisers recommend. But, as you know, this world is far from perfect and most people are far from that goal. The reality is that the loss of a paycheck, for even a short period of time, can have serious consequences for your employees. Statistically, 60% of working Americans don’t have savings set aside for emergencies.
Health problems are a huge cause of home foreclosures and medical bills are a factor in more than half of personal bankruptcies. OK OK there are plenty of statistics and you get that. The point here is to let small business owners know that short-term disability is a reasonably affordable benefit that can make a big difference for your employees. Beyond the typical issues of illness and accident, a short-term disability policy can help a small business navigate the sometimes-tricky issue of maternity leave.
Besides offering a very practical benefit to your employees, a short-term disability policy can remove you from the position of having determine who is really disabled from working and who isn’t and can help prevent people from taking advantage of you. These policies can be put in place as an employer paid policy or as a “voluntary” policy (which means the employees pay the premium). Getting this kind of protection at a group rate results in significant savings as compared with doing so on an individual basis.
To learn more or get quotes on short-term (and long-term) disability insurance coverage for your team, contact AC Forrest.
