What is Disability Insurance?

Disability Insurance is an income protection policy that provides monthly benefits to supplement the loss of wages during an unforeseen injury or illness. Disability Insurance is designed specifically to help cover those basic expenses while your clients recover from an illness or injury and protect the things that are most important to them.

If your client loses income for an extended period, how will that time gap affect their home, their family and their savings and retirement? Without a plan or disability insurance product, a family could lose their home and put a strain on their budget to make ends meet. Some people think of disability insurance as “paycheck protection.”

Disability insurance functions like many other insurance policies in that your client pays a set amount at regular intervals and in exchange, he/she receives benefits if he/she uses the policy. The monthly benefit can help protect their home since a mortgage or rent payment is often a significant monthly expense.

Each client’s situation is different. AIPMA has an experienced Business Development team to discuss product differences, answer questions, and generate illustrations to help you show life insurance product options to your clients. Contact our Business Development Team at (800) 783-5206, Prompt 2 or [email protected].

Disability Insurance Statistics

• Results of the 2025 Insurance Barometer Study show that of consumers without disability insurance coverage, more than half (51%) say they would rely on their personal savings should they lose the ability to earn an income, and 32% would turn to their family to keep financially afloat.*
• The 2025 Insurance Barometer Study also finds more than a quarter (26%) would draw from their retirement savings accounts — potentially undermining their future financial security in retirement — and 1 in 5 say they would take out loans or use their credit cards to get by.*
• The 2025 BEAT Study: Benefits and Employee Attitude Tracker shows that half of employees find having disability benefits available to them at work very (or extremely) important.*
• The BEAT Study finds that just 55% of employees can say definitively whether their employer even offers disability insurance, and less than half of workers say they have a strong understanding of these benefits.*
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that 28.7% of American adults currently live with a disability.**

*Source: LIMRA, Disability Insurance Awareness Month: Is Your Income Protected?, May 2025

**Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Disability Impacts All of Us Infographic, updated July 15, 2024