The idea of skipping disability insurance and just "self-insuring" can sound appealing at first, especially if you’d rather invest the premiums yourself.

In this case study, we walk through that question using real quotes and a practical example based on the kinds of situations we often see. The goal is to help you see what self-insuring would actually mean for your savings if a disability happened, and why that approach usually does not work well unless you already have enough saved that you’d be comfortable retiring today.

Table of Contents

• 0:00 Overview of our agenda for this video
• 1:41 Looking at the two quotes being considered
• 7:07 How does what he could get from disability insurance compare to what he could get from investing the premiums? Let’s use Excel to find out.
• 16:15 What does the future look like if he experiences an "average"-length long-term disability of 3 years?
• 18:18 How to think about self-insurance of disability risk, and the "thinking trap" you should avoid

To explore your options, you can begin by getting quotes for disability insurance.