Percent More or Less than Average Premium
Male: 4.29%
Female: -6.73%
Policy Options from All of the Big Five Companies:
Yes
Unisex Policies Offered
No
*The information on this page is accurate as of the date this page was created, September 2021. Policies and discounts vary by individual circumstances. For information on your specific options, please consult with one of our advisors.
Located in the Pacific Northwest is Idaho, a U.S. state with significant economic growth in the manufacturing, agriculture, mining, forestry, and tourism industries. Idaho is known for having a thriving agriculture sector that supplies potatoes and other vegetable products. It borders 6 different states including Montana to the east and northeast, Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington and Oregon to the west.
Idaho covers 83,570 square miles of land and water, and has a population of approximately 1.8 million people, making it the 14th largest and 7th least densely-populated state in the United States. In the healthcare industry, the patient-to-doctor ratio sits at 1,300 patients to 1 doctor.
There are less than 1,400 active physicians from a variety of specialties in Idaho, including:
Radiology: 203 active physicians
Emergency medicine: 171
Surgery: 146
Anesthesiologists: 116
Psychiatry: 107
Cardiology: 45
Oncology: 33
Endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism: 15
All other specialties: 549
For physicians in Idaho, the shortage of physicians is due to several factors: there is limited access to state medical education, salaries tend to be lower, and it’s tougher to recruit in rural areas. It’s apparent that if you’re willing to invest the time and money into a carefully-integrated medical education, then it’s equally (or even more so) important for you to invest in strong financial security.
But what kind of financial security is best for you? As we discuss in Chapter 2 of our Beginner’s Guide, physician disability insurance is the optimal method to having protection from financial risk if you lose your income from an injury or illness. In order to qualify for disability insurance benefits, you have to meet the definition of disability that’s outlined in your specific policy.
The best and most comprehensive type of disability definition we recommend physicians get is true own-occupation. The point of true own-occupation policies is to pay you your full benefit if you can’t perform your specialty physician duties, and you’ll still be able to work elsewhere. This isn’t the same for other definitions like modified or any own-occupation definitions, where you won’t be able to collect any income benefits if you have a disability and want to work in another profession.
An example of true own-occupation is if you’re a neuropsychiatrist who becomes disabled from an accident or serious illness. You will be able to collect your full disability insurance benefit amount, and still qualify for disability if you want to work as a medical professor or some other job.
Do you understand the value of physician disability insurance now? The next step is to find the best disability insurance for you, which Pattern is here entirely to help you with. As an independent agency, our mission is to provide you with the best expertise and resources to find a disability insurance policy that meets your best interests, something you won’t get if you were to get disability insurance through your employer.
We generally recommend you avoid signing up for an employer-driven physician disability insurance policy, because of 4 main reasons:
Employer policies are non-transferable: you won’t be able to transfer a policy you’ve spent years paying into in case you decide to work elsewhere.
Employer policies are NOT true own-occupation: you will likely have to give up working anymore in order to qualify for your benefit payments.
Employer policies are taxable: imagine becoming disabled, being forbidden to work anymore, and then finding out that whatever disability benefit income you collect will be taxed, leaving you with considerably less income than when you were working full time.
Your employer can change or cancel your policy at any time: because your employer has full control of your policy, they can change or even cancel it at any time. This could leave you in a horrible financial situation.
When you work with Pattern experts, we serve as the middle person between you and the Big Five Companies that offer physician disability insurance. We are well aware that physician disability insurance is a very complicated subject with many aspects. That’s why we created a Beginner’s Guide to Disability Insurance, and the focus of our brand is to help you find your best policy.
Working with Pattern consists of you completing 3 simple steps:
Request your quotes: you fill out a quote request form, and we submit it to each of the Big Five Companies
Compare your options: you review and compare your five quotes. Your Pattern support team will be there to guide you through the policies, answer your questions, provide examples, and make sure you have a clear understanding of each policy.
Apply and buy: after you’ve made a decision, we will help you complete and submit a short application. From there, we will handle the insurance paperwork and get your income insured.