The Social Security Administration recently announces beneficiaries will not receive higher benefit checks for a second consecutive year, which, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America says, highlights why individual disability income protection should be attained before it's needed.
Of the Americans on Social Security, almost 10 million receive disability benefits, rather than retirement. Annually, cost-of-living adjustments are automatically fixed based on an inflation measure passed by Congress in the 1970s, but earlier this fall the Department of Labor released inflation figures signifying consumer prices are less than two years ago, which is when COLA was last applied, leading to no higher benefit checks in 2011.
"The official absence of inflation isn't much comfort to those Americans receiving disability benefits whose savings and home values haven't recovered from the recession," says Lawrence S. Hazzard, vice president of product strategy at Berkshire Life Insurance Company of America, which distributes individual disability income insurance.
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