October 1, 2019

Your estate plan includes important components such as a will, to help distribute your assets if and when something happens to you. But one of the most overlooked aspects of planning for incapacity during your life has to do with a lack of knowledge surrounding what it might be like to live with a disability. Living with a disability could interrupt your opportunity to work in your current profession.

How Would a Disability Impact Your Work?

Research from the CDC shows that one in four adults in the United States live with a disability. Mobility disabilities are most common for those outside of the younger adult age categories. Younger adults are most likely to suffer from cognitive disabilities. This one in four number breaks down to 61 million Americans who have some form of a disability that impedes their major life activities.

Most people either have a disability or know someone who has one during the course of their life. Combine these disability facts with the statistic that only 48% of adults in the United States have enough expenses to cover three months of living without any income, means that it is more important than ever to look into potential incapacity planning.

Other studies have found that approximately half of US adults have shared that they wouldn’t be able to pay an unexpected $400 bill without selling something or taking out a loan to do so. The chance of missing work due to injury or illness is much greater than most people recognize. In fact, of today’s 20 year olds, more than one in four can expect to be out of work for a minimum of one year prior to reaching the normal retirement age. This makes it important to consider incapacity planning and disability planning in your overall estate planning picture.