Income Protection Journal Podcast

Group long-term disability through your employer typically pays $2,000 to $15,000 a month before tax, far less than what high-income working professionals actually earn. Independent insurance broker Analisa Cleland explains the four-part group LTD trap, the worksite-product portability path for the uninsurable, and why 92 percent of brokers licensed to sell disability insurance don't.

Gretchen Rosenberg has watched agents at her brokerage get sick, stop working, and find out how little income protection they had. When that happened, colleagues sometimes stepped in. They covered showings, managed contracts, and kept deals from unraveling. What they could never replace was her paycheck. Five years ago, Rosenberg launched a foundation at Kentwood Real Estate that provides emergenc...

A doctor who could no longer practice medicine after a neurological diagnosis started painting watercolors and selling them to make up what his disability benefits did not cover. His policy had been sufficient when he first bought it, but his income had grown beyond what the coverage was designed to replace, and no one had reviewed it in the years between. Bob Herum was a young agent at Provident...

A physician with fifteen years in clinical practice and a dual household income had the financial plan most parents assume they have. She had started a 529 college savings account before her daughter was born, carried benefits through a large integrated health system, and expected a pension to grow alongside her career. Then her marriage ended when her daughter was five, and the plan she had count...

He was 41 years old litigator who just made partner at his firm. His career was on the ascent. Then, out of no where, he suffered a massive stroke. He survived. But the left side of his face was partially paralyzed, and his speech — the tool on which his entire legal career depended — was slow and hard to follow. How clients defected. And plying his trade in the courtroom was no longer a realistic...

When people apply for insurance, they expect a straightforward process. Fill out an application, answer a few health questions, and wait for an approval. But in many cases, something else happens behind the scenes they never see coming. During a recent conversation on the Income Protection Journal Podcast, I spoke with Steve Eskoz about the moment many applicants realize the process is more compli...

Dentists spend years mastering precision, technique, and patient care. What they often underestimate early in their careers is how quickly a physical injury can interrupt that work and place an entire practice under pressure. During a recent episode of The Income Protection Podcast, I spoke with Dr. Eric D’Hondt about the moment he realized the physical demands of dentistry could suddenly threaten...

When Steven Crawford told me about the hospitals on probation, he actually got a little choked up. He was trying to choose his words carefully because what he was about to say has real consequences for thousands of medical residents and fellows who assumed the offer sitting in their inbox would still be valid when they clicked on it after Match Day. Early last year, Guardian Life Insurance pulled...

She had survived a college mass shooting. She was taking PTSD anxiety medication that required frequent adjustments. She'd had multiple pregnancy complications in her medical chart. She was also a resident physician at a hospital with one of the most valuable GSI disability insurance offers in the country. This was guaranteed standard issue coverage that would have protected her income with no med...

When I spoke with board-certified trauma surgeon Dr. Nii Darko, DO, MBA, FACS for this episode of The Income Protection Journal Podcast, he started with a moment humiliating in its simplicity. He was cutting up a hospital mattress his town's local rubbish service wouldn't pick up, put a little too much tension on one finger, and felt what he described as a rubber band snapping. The next day he was...

Disability coverage for veterinarians is often treated like something you think about later, after the practice is stable, after the loans feel manageable, after life quiets down. In my conversation with Dr. Michelle Custead, a board-certified veterinary medical oncologist and practice owner, what stood out was how rarely “later” arrives on schedule — and how quickly an ordinary day can turn into...

I went into this conversation expecting to talk about claims the way most people imagine them: paperwork, delays, frustration, maybe a denial that needs to be appealed. What I didn’t expect was how quickly the discussion shifted to something more unsettling—the realization that many people buy disability insurance believing they’re protected, only to discover years later that the policy language q...

A physician told me he thinks about disability insurance for physicians the same way he thinks about a dashboard warning light: by the time it flashes, you’re already behind the ball. That line landed harder than I expected, because it came from someone who lives on the other side of the exam room. In a recorded conversation for The Income Protection Podcast, I spoke with Dr. Isheet Patel, a board...

There’s a point in some careers when protection that once felt solid starts to feel thin. Nothing has gone wrong yet. No diagnosis. No accident. Just a quiet realization that the numbers no longer line up the way you assumed they would. That tension came up repeatedly in my recent conversation on The Income Protection Podcast, where I sat down with Tom Petersen, a senior partner at Petersen Intern...

Disability insurance for physicians is easy to think about in abstract terms until the moment your own health forces the issue. I was reminded of that in a recent episode of THE Income Protection Podcast, when I spoke with Dr. Peter Crane, a rural family physician in Idaho, about the night he accidentally opened his own CT scan while working an emergency department shift. How disability coverage c...

Most people in their fifties and early sixties think income protection means safeguarding earnings during their working years. But on the latest Income Protection Podcast, MassMutual’s Marcus Watson explains why the real pressure point comes later — when income stops, responsibilities continue, and the financial path a family takes depends entirely on which version of the future arrives first. The...