
The one HR benefit every startup should add - jaf12duke
http://42floors.com/blog/the-one-hr-benefit-every-startup-should-add/
======
moron4hire
I actually really rather prefer buying my own insurance, and by that I mean I
buy only the minimum required by law. Insurance companies design their
policies to get more out of you then you get out of them, and they've gotten
very good at figuring out ways to deny benefits to people.

Just give me the money in my paycheck and let me do with it as I see fit. The
money I would spend on insurance I put into a personal savings account. I
insure myself.

I spent $1200 _total_ on health care costs in the last 3 years. Now that
Obamacare requires I buy insurance or else get hit with a penalty, I'm going
to be spending a lot more than that every year.

Why should it be cheaper to have group policies through employers? The entire
freaking point of the insurance company is that they are pooling money from a
bunch of people over time in the form of premiums to be able to distribute to
a minority who need it in emergencies. It's already a paramutual arrangement,
why do we have to obfuscate it with employer group policies?

Insurance, at least as it is done in the US, is a scam. It is an oligarchy
designed to keep medical services prices high so they can justify outlandish
premiums as merely just a small percentage margin.

~~~
mikeash
Your story of spending $1200 on health care in three years could very well
have been one of being completely bankrupted because you suffered a serious
but not life-threatening injury. Unless you're a millionaire, you cannot self-
insure when it comes to health care. It's not hard at all to rack up a couple
of million dollars in hospital bills if you get unlucky, and you'd probably
never be able to pay that back.

Of course, the hospital would still treat you, and the rest of us end up
paying for your care through slightly higher insurance premiums.

In short, you're implicitly mooching off society, and apparently proud of it.
You managed to get away without actually triggering it, so far, but you were
pushing a lot of financial risk onto other people. (Ignore this if you are, in
fact, a millionaire.)

You wonder why individual plans are so much more expensive than group plans.
It's _because of people like you!_ Group plans include every employee, healthy
or not, while millions of healthy individuals forego buying individual
coverage because they think they don't need it. This gives the individual
market a much riskier pool of customers.

I agree with the basic idea that the US health insurance market is completely
messed up, but you're really doing it wrong, here.

~~~
moron4hire
In any risk assessment, you have to balance impact with likelihood. Yes, it
_could_ have happened, but the likelihood is so rare that it's not worth the
premium.

Once again, that's the entire point of the insurance company. They balance
impact and likelihood.

Even if I had the insurance to cover me, you're _still_ going to get slightly
higher insurance premiums. You're actually more likely to receive a higher
delta because I _was_ covered than I wasn't, as the hospital will recoup its
losses across all insurance providers, while the insurance company will recoup
across only their own constituents.

The health insurance system is an oligopoly that allows insurance companies
and health care providers to collude to set artificially high prices. Drug
companies, hospitals, surgeons, medical schools--they all get their payday and
the insurance company gets to make a "small" percentage margin on top of it.
Which just so conveniently means that they're some of the most profitable
companies in the world. Just look at the bottom dollar. If they weren't making
out like bandits, they wouldn't be making out like bandits.

It's specifically _because_ of ubiquitous health insurance that health
services prices are so high. If more people covered themselves, the price of
services wouldn't be high, insurance payouts wouldn't be so high, and thus
insurance premiums wouldn't be so high. I'm actually doing you a favor by
sticking to my principles.

EDIT: and regardless of all of that, nobody has the right to mandate what
others do with their lives. I could have chosen to be a burger flipper for the
rest of my life and your argument would of social impact would still hold,
even be worse because society would be out my higher tax revenue.

~~~
mikeash
Yes, I'd be paying for your care either way. The difference is, the way you're
doing it now, you contribute nothing while I still pay for your care. If _I_
get a million-dollar hospital bill, _you_ don't pay more, but the reverse is
true.

If insurance weren't ubiquitous, service would be cheaper, sure. And people
would die or be bankrupted by treatable medical conditions like crazy. This is
why insurance is so common. People don't like that kind of thing.

Given the system that we're in, you're doing me no favors at all by refraining
from obtaining health insurance as a healthy person. You've decided that the
risk of bankruptcy is acceptable while externalizing a lot of that risk.

~~~
moron4hire
Your notions of my responsibilities for how and when to protect your financial
security are of no concern to me. I will make my own contributions to society
as I see fit.

~~~
aangjie
Disclaimer: Am Indian, and have no detailed knowledge of US policies. From a
summary of the replies to this one: I personally, would be willing to sign a
forfeiture to the effect, if i am medically in a bad state and can't afford
treatment, would be allowed to die. So it seems, there might be room for
allowing people who don't want insurance, and neither penalty to sign a
forfeiture.

Personally, my choice is dictated by an attempt to understand my body and live
a fuller life and some of those attempts suggest to me that insurance is
overrated in light of Bayesian reasoning _._ \-- not to suggest i actually sat
down and calculated, just a guess.

~~~
wpietri
It wouldn't be practical.

For example, consider what happens if, as is very likely, you change your
mind. The doctor says, "It's cancer, but it's treatable." You say, "Oh, I
didn't think this through, please save me."

Very few doctors could say, "Tough, here's some aspirin, GTFO." If they could,
they wouldn't have chosen to become doctors.

Or consider the case where you're unconscious and dying. Do they save you, or
not? They can't really know what it will ultimately cost, and the certainly
can't know how much money you could raise.

------
pg
We didn't have this type of insurance at YC but now we're going to get it. So
thanks for the tip Jason.

~~~
300bps
Group disability insurance is very often worthless and not worth even the
paltry sum an employer pays for it.

 _Disability insurance is all about the definition of disability. Only a few
people have a truly comprehensive disability policy through their employer.
This is because the definition of disability for group policies usually
requires that, when making a disability claim, you cannot work in your job "or
any other job" (or something to that effect). As as a result, you usually must
be completely and totally disabled on a permanent basis to collect long term
disability from your employer._

[http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Disability_insurance](http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Disability_insurance)

Often, they don't kick in for 6 months and then because you're still able to
sell pencils for 50 cents on the street corner they will not cover you.

The reason why individual policies are typically much more expensive is
because their definition of disability is different. Many individual policies
are "true own occupation" which means that if you're now a neurosurgeon they
can't force you to work at a McDonald's drive through.

~~~
tcas
My LTD is 60% of my income, tax free (very important, always pay for any
disability post-tax, if you don't your income from it is taxable), until I am
able to make over 80% of my pre disability income.

It provides me benefits from 6 months after my disability (I decided not to
pay for short term which starts at 2 weeks until 6), and will keep going until
I am ~65 years old.

~~~
300bps
Is it an "own occupation" policy? If not you have to be a vegetable before you
can collect the 60% you signed up for.

~~~
tcas
Just double checked. It's own occupation for 24 months, then it becomes
reasonable occupation. I have a feeling that that term is something that when
24 months approach, you want a good lawyer for.

Still, considering I'm paying less than a coffee per month for LTD, and
personally knowing someone who was once working as a top tier developer and
got into a serious biking accident that left him with brain injuries, I'm
going to buy into it. Next year I'm going to push HR about that 24 month
clause.

~~~
kamaal
>>It's own occupation for 24 months, then it becomes reasonable occupation.

Reasonable occupation is pretty vague and I think this kind of word-play is
what helps insurance companies find reasons or even solid justifications to
not pay up in the end.

As your parent comment implied, the insurance company can just argue selling
lemonade or pencils is a 'reasonable occupation' and can even prove there are
people surviving daily on such a business. And all that can become a base
reason to just not pay up.

~~~
dllthomas
Does anyone sell "insurer not paying" insurance to cover lawyer fees?

~~~
yebyen
This is actually what I thought OP was posting about when I was waiting for
the page to load.

------
chollida1
> And one of the things my dad brought up with me is just how important it is
> to have a good long term disability insurance plan in place. I had never
> actually heard about it. Long term disability is a policy that can pay out
> 60% of your salary for the rest of your life if you have an occupation-
> ending injury.

This is surprising to me. I'm Canadian and I've worked my whole life here so
maybe this is one of those Canadian vs US things, but I've never had a job
that didn't have long term disability as part of its offering.

Most pay the standard 60% of your pay for the rest of your life if you are
unable to work at that job any more.

As someone with a family, I'd say its probably the most important form of
insurance to have, if you have someone else to take care of your kids in the
event of both parents dieing.

~~~
carlob
Isn't this provided by the national health coverage in countries with a
welfare state? AFAIK there are a lot of people on disability checks in the US
as well, I'm not sure it pays well though.

~~~
jguimont
In Quebec, there is a maximum insured by the state and it start 180 days after
the event. So if you hand up breaking your ribs/hands and stop working for 4
months, you never get this. My private insurances cover from 60 days up to the
180 days at 80% and then goes down to 60%. The effect of the state insurances
is to lower the cost of the private insurances.

~~~
carlob
Wait a second, this is if you do get fired for breaking your hand right? In
most European countries I guess you'd just be on sick leave for 4 months.

~~~
jlgreco
What would happen if you were self-employed? Is there some sort of sick-leave
state benefit then?

~~~
carlob
Yes this is what happens in Italy. You pay almost 30% of what you make in a
compulsory fund for retirement and disability pension and when you need it,
the state pays you.

------
jt2190
AFAIK there are two common types of long-term disability policy:

1\. You are covered if you can't do your current job. 2\. You are covered if
you can't do any job.

Every employer who has ever offered me this benefit offered the second
version, which is great, but it certainly won't help replace my current income
if I can't perform the job I have now.

~~~
brucehart
I'm not sure how you prove that you are partially disabled for any job that is
primarily mental rather than physical. For example I once worked with a guy
that was a lead software engineer. Shortly after he was hired, he got into a
car accident and sustained a serious concussion. He claimed that after the
concussion he could write basic code, but he didn't have the ability to
concentrate enough to solve difficult problems or architect complex systems.
How is an insurance company supposed to determine his level of disability?
They don't really have a baseline to determine how strong of an engineer he
was before the accident. Are they obligated to pay the difference between the
salary of a junior and senior level engineer if he gets fired?

~~~
dkrich
I'm not a WC attorney but my brother is so take this with a grain of salt, but
my understanding is that adjusters will work to evaluate you to determine the
legitimacy of your claim. This goes for just about any kind of claim, but you
can bet that if you are making a claim that can add up to hundreds of
thousands to millions of dollars over your lifetime, they are going to expend
some effort to make that determination. This would involve experts in the
field evaluating you through tests and interviews.

------
aaronchriscohen
Dental coverage is a scam. I priced dental insurance for my startups for three
years. The only plans available to companies with less than 50 employees have
benefit caps that were less than the cost of the yearly premiums! You get
"free" cleanings and x-rays but it still makes much, much, much more sense to
take the cost of the premium and put it in a health savings account for your
employee to spend on dental care (or any other qualified medical expense).

~~~
silverlake
At least in my area (NYC) the value of dental insurance is also they negotiate
very low prices with their providers. For a root canal the difference was 50%.

~~~
pmahoney
I don't have numbers, but back when I had no dental insurance, my dentist
reduced the price without any prodding. I'd be surprised if this wasn't
common.

------
enraged_camel
It just occurred to me that the more benefits jobs provide, the more dependent
on those jobs people become, and the harder they fall when they lose those
jobs.

This is NOT an argument against providing benefits, of course. But it does
create a weird dynamic.

~~~
danielweber
People might be unable to leave because they need their current employer's
health insurance, but not leaving because of losing disability? That's a new
one.

~~~
tomjen3
Potentially stupid question, but wouldn't they be covered under their new
employers insurance?

~~~
Swannie
Not a stupid question.

I am covered, during my time I am diagnosed with cancer. I get treatment, and
am declared "free" of cancer. I remain that way for 5 years, and claim no more
benefits. I am still covered.

I leave, and join a new company. To enter their health insurance, I have to
declare any "pre-existing" conditions. They see that I am in remission from
cancer, and offer my employer two choices: pay hugely inflated premiums, or
get no cover. My new employer never expected to need to cover premiums 20
times that of their existing employees, and consequently I am now screwed.

~~~
toast0
Many times there is an exception for pre-existing conditions if you had
continuous credible coverage.

~~~
danielweber
The "P" in HIPAA stands for "Portability."

Group plans are limited in how long they can exclude someone for pre-existing
conditions, and guarantees no waiting period if they already had qualifying
insurance.

The private market doesn't have the same protections, for reasons both good
and bad.

------
goofygrin
We actually put Ltd in place this year. For our company (11 employees, almost
everyone in their 30s) it added like $10 a month to our policy. We also pay
100 percent of the health care and it's our #1 expense after labor.

~~~
jaf12duke
OP here. I'm not an expert, but $10 per month sounds too low. Check the policy
and make sure it covers your employees against disabilities that still allow
them to work minimum-wage jobs.

Usually the income-parity clause costs extra.

~~~
goofygrin
I don't remember the actual number, but it's laughably low (maybe
$10-20/employee, frankly it was a number of months ago).

------
nemesisj
Man, this really brings back bad memories of wrestling with health insurance,
dental insurance, and the like in my previous USA startup. Now I'm in the UK
and we don't have to worry about it!

~~~
joosters
Long-term disability benefit is still important even if you have free
healthcare. It's fantastic that state healthcare will keep you alive should
something terrible happen to you. But that's not going to fully help any of
your dependents.

~~~
goatforce5
One of my UK employers was quite large and had particularly good disability
benefits because a small number of staff worked in physically dangerous jobs,
the union wanted those staff treated really well if something bad happened and
so everyone in the entirely company was covered for 80-90% of their wage.

A new desk-bound sales guy started and had a stroke before lunch time on his
first day and was going to be out of action for a good long while - perhaps
forever. A serious stroke is bad news, but he was sure lucky that it didn't
happen a few hours earlier.

------
donpdonp
Too Link-Baity; Didnt Read

"The one weird HR benefit every startup should add"

------
skittles
Seems like many otherwise smart people think in terms of "how likely am I to
need this?". Insurance should be thought of in terms of "how screwed would I
or my family be if...?". If somebody depends upon your income, get life
insurance and long term disability. If _you_ depend on your income, get long
term disability. Everyone except for billionaires needs major medical
insurance (USA). And stop insuring things that you can afford to replace
(warranties generally).

------
lesinski
It baffles me how few people have disability insurance. What would you do if
injured your hands and could never type again? What would your family do?
Everyone should have disability insurance -- it should be a fundamental part
of your financial life.

~~~
utnick
Isnt this what social security disability is supposed to cover? Obviously it
won't give you as much money as a private plan, but it wouldnt be a total
disaster.

~~~
jfarmer
Getting social security disability is a small nightmare and can take months.
The majority of initial claims (60%+) are rejected and you'll have to appeal.

Which, you know, is no problem at all if you're actually so injured you can't
work.

~~~
aestra
Months? Try years.

~~~
jfarmer
Heh.

I wanted to be truthful and didn't know off the top of my head what, say, the
median time for a claim to be accepted was.

I remember it being something like 2-5 months to get a response, so multiply
that by the number of appeals (up to 4, I think) and my ballpark estimate is
that the median time-to-acceptance for all eventually-accepted claims is
around 6-18 months.

So, I figured saying "could take months" was a more honest thing than saying
"could take years." If the median time were greater than a year, after all,
"it could take months" is still true, but the converse isn't true! If I had
said "years" instead of "months" and was wrong, someone could easily have
replied, saying, "You're exaggerating. The median time to acceptance is 9
months, not _years_. The claims that take years are exceptional cases."

In any case, I didn't know, so I wanted to err on the side of intellectual
honesty. That'll teach me. :P

Also, I don't know if you (and the other person who replied with the same
comment) have ever heard of Wiio's Laws:
[http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html](http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html)

One corollary of those laws is this: "If nobody barks at you, your message did
not get through." :)

~~~
aestra
Heh, sorry about my reply. I was just speaking from being on the end of having
a parent who went through the process. I seem to remember it taking on the
order of more than a year. Good news is it is retroactive from when you apply
though. This was over 20 years ago, things might have changed since.

------
westicle
I just left an employer who had 100% salary continuance insurance in place.

Maybe mine is the minority view, but I found it a horrendous waste. When I
left the employer it offered to have my portion of the policy transferred to
me personally so that I could "continue to enjoy the benefits". I didn't even
bother responding (despite leaving on otherwise very good terms).

While I work, I expect to be remunerated. But I don't allow myself the hubris
to expect that remuneration should continue in perpetuity. If I decide not to
work, or am unable to work, I would prefer to adjust my circumstances to
accommodate that fact, rather than continue to pretend otherwise.

~~~
mikeash
Insurance is about distributing risk. Instead of e.g. 2% of people taking a
100% loss, 100% of people take a 2% loss. Since a guaranteed 2% loss is way
more palatable to many people than a chance of a 100% loss, this works out
well for many people.

It's not "hubris", it's simple economics. If you don't like it, you don't have
to take it, of course. You're allowed to take the option of being forced to
live on the streets if you suffer an injury that makes you unable to work for
a living. But don't think that other people are somehow deranged for
disagreeing.

~~~
westicle
I never said that I consider my view objectively correct or superior... and
never intended to imply that a contrary view would be deranged! Far from it; I
explicitly recognised that mine was probably a minority view.

However the submission implicitly assumes that this option is right for
everyone ("The one HR benefit that every startup should add"). I recognise
that some people see it as valuable. Hopefully those people can also recognise
that other people don't!

I also think the strawman of "Take disability insurance or live on the
streets" is rather hyperbolic. The actual alternative is relying on social
security disability payments and my existing savings vs an insurance-funded
pension. Maybe I'll have to let my chauffeur go, but I'm hardly going to be
sleeping in gutters if I take the former option.

~~~
ceejayoz
My wife's working through the social security disability process, and it's not
something you can rely on for months if not years (assuming your appeal of the
nearly guaranteed initial denial even works!). If she had been our family's
single income we'd be destitute.

~~~
westicle
That sucks... sorry to hear it.

My country doesn't seem to have implemented the blanket-denial first stage of
the process yet, however luckily I have savings which could tide me over until
the payments get backdated in that eventuality.

------
bradleyjg
The difference in cost of benefits such as health, eye, dental, life and
disability insurance, particularly if dependents are included can easily cost
tens of thousands of dollars a year more for one employee than for another.

Do you want to haphazardly compensate your employees like that, without it
even being bargained for during the hiring process? Wouldn't it be better to
negotiate a total compensation number instead? You could potentially be
looking at a whole different class of employees for the same total money.

Though maybe the (irrational) bad will generated would wipe out the gains.

------
peteboyd
This is one area where health care insurance costs are pretty affordable. We
are a web design company in the sunny state of Florida, so these are our rates
based on 10 to 20 employees.

From my understanding the larger you are, the cheaper the rates. Since the
article /comments asked for typical rates, here is where we are at to compare.
Not sure how many employees 42floors.com has, but $2,500 per year would
probably be around 5 to 10 employees if they were all male.

STD/LTD Group Policies - Our rates are typically $21 to $60 per male employee
and $71 to $150 per female employee per month. So it could add about $250 to
$1,800 per employee depending on their salary and gender.

Maternity Leave - The good news is that this covers maternity leave of 3
months for our lady employees. This is a nice benefit to offer. It also
explains the higher rates based on gender.

Health Care Coverage - Most group health insurance policies are super high in
monthly premiums ($200 to $600 per month for individuals and $1,000 to $1,500
for family coverage). We cover this in full right now for individuals. But it
is a huge ongoing cost, especially as everyone gets older and starts families.
STD/LTD policies are very cheap by comparison (obviously geared towards a
different life event).

Other options - It would probably be cheaper if you just bought long-term, if
the concern is catastrophic coverage. But we cover short term too and that
increases the rates.

~~~
michaelt

      Our rates are typically $21 to $60 per male employee and
      $71 to $150 per female employee per month.
    

Did they mention why female employees cost so much more?

I thought (from car insurance prices etc) that men are more likely to get into
accidents? I was under the impression female-only things like childbirth were
fairly safe these days.

~~~
dustcoin
From the GP:

    
    
      Maternity Leave - The good news is that this covers maternity leave of 3 months
      for our lady employees. This is a nice benefit to offer.
      It also explains the higher rates based on gender.
    

Maternity leave is much more likely to be utilized than long term disability
insurance.

------
rkaplan
My aunt used to work at a school that did not have this policy in place. The
principle had a debilitating head injury that put her in a coma; she is now
unfit to work for the rest of her life. It was tremendously sad for everyone
involved, but it has also severely strained the school financially. Under
Massachusetts law, the school is required to pay a large percentage of her
original salary now that she is disabled. Had they taken out an LTD insurance
policy this wouldn't have been a problem.

------
danielweber
Important note:

If the company pays for your disability with pre-tax dollars, your disability
payments are taxed as income.

If you pay for your disability with after-tax dollars, you are not taxed on
the income.

Keep this in mind when designing the plan. If taxing the employees on their
disability benefits makes the benefits tax-free, you should give your
employees that option.

~~~
paul_f
This is why many plans pay 60% of your salary in benefits. Since it is tax
free.

------
FatalBaboon
Comparing this with my French life is astonishing.

I can go in and out of hospitals/any doctor for almost free, ambulance ride
included if necessary. For ~30€ monthly above the basic care (paid by
employers). I don't recall ever worrying about money when it comes to health.
What you have in the US is archaic.

------
grumps
I'm not completely following this whole healthcare reform. I do know that it's
more cost effective for employeers of small businesses to use a SHOP exchange:
[https://www.healthcare.gov/what-is-the-shop-
marketplace/](https://www.healthcare.gov/what-is-the-shop-marketplace/)

According to my current employeer they wont be able to purchase 100% coverage
using the health exchange. So personally this is going to start costing me
significantly more...

Edit:Apparently - our benefits consultant commented that it would be cheaper
for individuals to purchase their own health insurance. I guess I will deal
with that when the time comes.

------
bstpierre
One thing not mentioned here is the waiting period. I.e. after you are injured
and stop working, you are typically required to use up all of your
sick/vacation time, and/or wait for 180 days until you can receive benefits.

I've worked for companies that offer short-term disability insurance -- which
will cover the gap -- but this is less common than LTD.

This is why it's important to have an emergency fund to cover your living
expenses for at least the waiting period. Otherwise you could be looking at
eviction before the money from your disability insurance comes in.

------
basicallydan
At Huddle, in the UK, we don't even need this (NHS. No, I don't want to argue
about this.) but we have both health insurance and death-in-service coverage
for families.

It's made a big difference to our general peace-of-mind, and there are a bunch
of other things that go along with it to encourage fitness. We're all a _lot_
fitter than we were before, and since the team is more family-oriented than we
were when the company started, death-in-service coverage is very welcome.

------
tlrobinson
The obvious question is how is "occupation-ending" defined, in particular for
knowledge workers who could quite possibly continue working with even severe
physical disabilities?

------
ataggart
I'm not clear on what the argument is here other than "X is good, therefore X
should be provided by one's employer."

~~~
knowtheory
No, the argument is, X is good, but incredibly expensive for individuals. X
(interestingly) is cheap for employers. Therefore employers can provide this
substantial benefit X to employees in a manner they would not be able to
alone.

~~~
ataggart
I bring it up because there are downsides to coupling essential services to
whoever happens to be your employer at the time. The upsides are mostly a
consequence of the market adapting to decades-long tax policy. There's nothing
special about employers, but I guess sometimes it's easier to reinforce a
problem than to fix it.

~~~
knowtheory
Yes, I absolutely agree. I wish the US had a single payer healthcare system.

But that's not the reality we live in (yet, hopefully). So if these sorts of
opportunities exist, presumably we should consider them.

------
mnml_
It doesn't make sense, just put those 2.5K to upgrade your retirement plan.

------
kalleboo
Happy to have a nanny state take care of this bother for me

------
Zenst
Given the cost and the impact upon what would be a very bad disaster, this
indeed makes so much sense and also seems cheap in comparision to other
benifits a company pays out for.

Few questions though on these types of policy:

    
    
        1) What limitations are needed to be observed - must a company have a defined standard of health and safty and as such a defined quantifiable level of risk.
    
        2) Are such policys only limited to accidents or directly measurable incidents that casue a disability in an employee or are outside area's like a bad skiing accident also covered.  The whole area of say parkinsons and somebody who has a family history of it would that also be covered as that would be a disability reducing career situation.
    
        3) The employers impact - loosing an employee is very costly and some more than others but whoever you lose will be a impact that is fiscaly measurable from cost of finding replacement and training time invested, down to extra overtime upon the others to pick up the slack until somebody else is upto speed.  This is factoring in every thing is documented to the if I fall under a bus will my colleges be able to pick up the slack.  So with that a little bit extra on the insurance policy to cover the Employer impact is also worth investing in if not already coevred.  Especialy given the rates based on policy costs too me appearing cheap and rasing flags given the odd's of somebody getting cancer or a road accident that could very well limit there ability to work.
    
        4) Quality of work, if somebody who was able to be very productive has an injury that whilst not preventing them from working, yet reduces there productivity in a measurable way - then how i that covered?  This is probably a situation when you have a employee contract and that employee is so good he does other area's of work that everybody accepts without his contract being updated.  I know many people in IT who have a contract saying that they are say a DBA and yet they do sys admin, backups and other tasks that build up that if they just worked to contract and did database work then other area's would fall apart.  Though is very much a area of managment limits and avoiding giving people pay rises that just seems to happen.  But in IT you would find your contract being very open in definition of your role or be updating that contract weekly (can you halp me move this printer - sure let me get that added to my contract so I'm allowed to move heavy objects) and could get silly.  But from an impact perspective, if they can do a 2 week holiday without them being missed beyond there defined role then your probably safe, though if you end up calling them during that period then in short your being unfair to that employee (or allowing him to be unfair to his or her self, more the case); Which could have a noticable impact - not just in situations of them unable to do there job, but if they leave (which is how most communicate that they feel undervalued instead of talking with you about it, least with many IT types who are good at the job).
    

But for an employee, this type of cost for the return is frankly a no brainer
given the example costs and with that I still can't help feel that the prices
are perhaps too cheap and some actuary has messed up. I hope that ain't so,
and my be that every other type of insurance is so over priced that I'm
conditioned that way. But having worked in reinsurance, I do feel the risk and
as such the cost of claim do seem somewhat out of sync and could be an
insurance industries asbestos waiting to happen. But were all IT geeks and we
now know how contracts and courts work so again this type of insurance for the
cost is really just a no brainer that it can actualy save you and your family
money to the extent that it is cheaper to insure the whole company instead of
just yourself for family peace of mind - crazy and yet that is the case. But
do check all the contract clauses as it does seem too cheap.

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contingencies
Very, a merry, centric.

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fudyy
Currently working for a company that doesn't offer LTD, and it scares me
whenever I think about not having it, but not enough to buy it on my own. It's
definitely a major plus.

