When suffering some kind of injury or illness impairs work for a certain period of time, there is a specific insurance plan whose purpose is to pay a monthly income to the policy holder. Such plan is called disability insurance plans used in most of the companies across the country and many parts of the world.

In general, companies offer two different types of disability insurance plans: Short-Term Disability insurance and Long-Term Disability Insurance. The first type of disability insurance has a waiting period of 0 to 14 days and a maximum benefit period of two years. The latter has a waiting period ranging from some weeks until several months and benefit period from a few years to the rest of the policy holder’s life. Some states such as New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Hawaii has state laws that guarantee disability insurance benefits from longer than 26 weeks

Some people tend to believe that there are laws regulating what kind disability insurance plans employers have to offer to workers. In fact, it’s something that has to be analyzed by both employers and employees before filing a claim. However, researches show that nearly 50% of large and mid companies in the country offer long term disability insurance today. Typical benefits for this type of plan replace 60% of the salary of the worker who is not able to perform his normal functions.

By receiving employer-paid disability income, the worker would have to pay federal and state taxes over the amount paid. There’s also option where the company chooses to pay those taxes for the employee.