FAQs

  • If you have applied for disability insurance in the last five years and one of the below results occurred, you are not eligible for the GSI program.

    • Application was approved with a modification, rating, and/or exclusion

    • Application was postponed or declined

    If you have applied for disability insurance in the last five years and withdrew your application, please reach out to our team so we can determine your eligibility for the GSI program.

  • You have invested a lot of time and resources in yourself in preparation for a successful career practicing medicine and it’s important to adequately protect your future income. We know to insure other assets, like our cars and our houses, but our income is and always will be our most valuable asset. A physician or dentist making $250,000 a year with a 3% annual cost of living raise will make nearly $12,000,000 over a 30-year professional career. Individual disability income insurance will provide a monthly benefit to you if you are too sick or too injured to work so that you can maintain your lifestyle and continue to provide for your family.

  • Many employers offer group long-term disability (GLTD) insurance benefits to their employees. These plans can vary in the amounts of coverage and the definitions of disability. Most plans are designed to cover a percentage of your income up to a maximum benefit. If you are a high earner, this can be an inadequate amount of coverage to fully protect your income. If your GLTD premium is paid by your employer, at the time of claim, your benefits will be taxed. Benefits from an individual disability insurance policy will not be taxed since you are paying the premium. Perhaps most importantly, your individual disability insurance policy is portable, meaning it provides coverage regardless of where you work or live, whereas your employer’s GLTD plan will terminate when you leave that employer.

  • The GSI program offered to UCLA residents and fellows allows you to purchase coverage with a 20% resident discount and also provides a future increase option (FIO) that will allow you to increase coverage after you graduate with no medical underwriting. The resident discount stays on your policy for life and will be applied every time you elect to increase your coverage in the future.

  • Medical underwriting is how an insurance carrier determines your risk of going on claim in the future. Carriers will ask lots of questions about your health history, including questions about your family medical history. They will run a Script Check to see all medications that have been prescribed to you over the last 5-10 years, and they will likely order medical records from one or more of your doctors. All of this information is reviewed to determine how much of a risk you are for going on claim. In order to mitigate their risk, carriers will issue policies with exclusions for pre-existing conditions, impose ratings (higher premiums), or postpone or decline an application. According to a 2019 study by a major DI carrier, less than 50% of their policies were issued with no modifications. The UCLA GSI policy allows you to get a policy with no modifications and without the hassle of medical underwriting.

  • The UCLA GSI policy includes a future increase option (FIO) rider which will allow you to increase your coverage each year on your policy anniversary with no medical underwriting. You will only need to provide financial evidence of insurability.

  • This policy will not provide coverage for a disability beginning in the 12 months after the policy issue date if it is caused by a Pre-Existing Condition (a condition for which you sought medical treatment during the 3 months prior to the issue date). Once the policy has been in force for 12 months, the pre-existing condition limitation no longer applies.