Health concerns loom large in employees’ minds, particularly the financial aspects — which can be catastrophic. But while many of those concerns could be allayed by disability insurance, employees don’t seem to know enough about it to benefit.
That’s according to Lincoln Financial’s special report “M.O.O.D. (Measuring Optimism, Outlook and Direction) of America on Employee Benefits,” which found that only 18 percent of employees feel very confident that they could pay the resulting bills if they were struck by serious illness or injury.
And those employees are definitely worried: Approximately half of American employees fear cancer, while 31 percent are afraid of heart attacks and chronic illnesses. Another 28 percent are afraid of what car accidents could do.
But when it comes to disability insurance, only 67 percent of those employees who are offered it through their employers actually enroll in it. Instead they rely on the familiar, participating in such benefits as life insurance and dental coverage — which have enrollment rates of 81 percent and 90 percent, respectively.
Even retirement plans, which can confound many workers with all their choices, see enrollment rates among respondents of 83 percent, while health insurance, despite its cost, comes in at a whopping 94 percent.
But not so disability insurance. Among the 33 percent of employees who are eligible for disability coverage but don’t enroll, the common sentiments are that “it’s unnecessary right now” or it’s “too expensive.” Instead, workers are prepared to run up their credit card balances (40 percent), raid retirement accounts (29 percent) or borrow from friends or family (26 percent) to pay unexpected medical bills that keep them out of work.
Only 30 percent even claim to know a lot about disability insurance, but 95 percent say they’re more likely to enroll in benefits they feel “familiar with and educated about.” That obviously translates to other benefits, so additional employee education about disability insurance could result in higher enrollment rates — and lower levels of fear when it comes to health concerns.
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