Fed employees please come in....insurance ?

[starryfish]

I want to look into getting short and long term disability (bc two people close to me that are young are in need of one or the other).

I looked at the website and I dont see that the government (or maybe just my agency) offers short term disability insurance. Is that true? If so, where do I get it from? How much has it cost you?

For long term disability, it is the same plan/provider for all Feds....but there are so many different options to choose from! Help!

[rubytue]

There is no disability insurance option for Feds (except perhaps a few agencies). Your short term disability is leave donation. Your long term disability is disability retirement.

Long term care insurance is expensive and fairly new (they started offering it 6-8 years ago). I don't know much about it.

Eta: disability insurance is income replacement. The long term care insurance options are for nursing home care, not income replacement.

[lishie]

To my knowledge, there isn't short term disability through the government, they say it's your leave (which is great if you've been there forever, but otherwise sucks--I'm at 5+ years and have all of 61 hours of SL after two pregnancy leaves).

I didn't take the long term disability, so I don't have a lot of knowledge on that. I do know that whatever they do offer isn't offered every year or every open season. True long term disability is disability retirement, and you need 18 months of service to even be eligible for it, and how much you get depends on how long you've worked for the government and what your salary was.

[starryfish]

Feb 15, 2013 13:22:38 GMT -5 rubytue said:

There is no disability insurance option for Feds (except perhaps a few agencies). Your short term disability is leave donation. Your long term disability is disability retirement.

Long term care insurance is expensive and fairly new (they started offering it 6-8 years ago). I don't know much about it.

Eta: disability insurance is income replacement. The long term care insurance options are for nursing home care, not income replacement.

What is disability retirement?

Should I get the long term care insurance? I am 27. Cheapest is $22 a month (limited to $109,000), most expensive option is $45 a month (for unlimited payout)

[womet]

Feb 15, 2013 13:22:38 GMT -5 rubytue said:

There is no disability insurance option for Feds (except perhaps a few agencies). Your short term disability is leave donation. Your long term disability is disability retirement.

Long term care insurance is expensive and fairly new (they started offering it 6-8 years ago). I don't know much about it.

Eta: disability insurance is income replacement. The long term care insurance options are for nursing home care, not income replacement.

This. When I was sick for ~3 months, I ended up getting leave donated. (Thank you to my mom who retired from another branch and donated the max allowed to me.) A friend of mine has had to retire for medical reasons, and she's still fighting with SSA about it. It's been almost a year since she retired... in her early 30s.

[starryfish]

Feb 15, 2013 13:27:56 GMT -5 womet said:

Feb 15, 2013 13:22:38 GMT -5 rubytue said:

There is no disability insurance option for Feds (except perhaps a few agencies). Your short term disability is leave donation. Your long term disability is disability retirement.

Long term care insurance is expensive and fairly new (they started offering it 6-8 years ago). I don't know much about it.

Eta: disability insurance is income replacement. The long term care insurance options are for nursing home care, not income replacement.

This. When I was sick for ~3 months, I ended up getting leave donated. (Thank you to my mom who retired from another branch and donated the max allowed to me.) A friend of mine has had to retire for medical reasons, and she's still fighting with SSA about it. It's been almost a year since she retired... in her early 30s.

I have a friend that will need to retire early due to medical reasons. Will she get her full salary or only like 60% or so?

Sorry about your friend

[rubytue]

Here is the about link disability retirement with the calculations: www.opm.gov/retirement-services/fers-information/types-of-retirement/#url=Disability

eta: sorry for being curt earlier.  I was on the phone.  But, in all seriousness, disability retirement is the long term disability plan for feds.  If you are going to be sick/disabled for longer than a year, they actually want you to take disability retirement.  The theory is the role of the feds in employment on a macro scale.  After a year, you get a disability retirement. On the plus note, if you recover, you can get another job and keep your retirement payment as long as you don't earn more than some percentage of your prior income (e.g. if you earned $100k before disability retirement, you would lose your retirement if you got a new job earning $100k, but you could get a job for say, $40k.  Don't trust these numbers).

[womet]

starryfish, my friend is still fighting to get her disability approved. It got rejected once, so she's trying again. It's not an easy process. I wish your friend a lot of luck.

[starryfish]

Feb 15, 2013 13:56:20 GMT -5 pennypenny said:

Feb 15, 2013 13:31:54 GMT -5 starryfish said:

I have a friend that will need to retire early due to medical reasons. Will she get her full salary or only like 60% or so?

Sorry about your friend

If I remember correctly from the 2 people I know that retired on disability, you get 60% or 66%, but it is not taxed.

Thanks for the info.

Do any of you all see the need to get private Short term or Private long term insurance?