Should I Sign Up For Short Term Disability Insurance? 
Yes , disability insurance is really paycheck insurance and protects your income stream in the event an accident or illness prevents you from working . There are two type of disability insurance ; Short Term & Long Term disability . Short term plans usually cover periods of 13 or 26 weeks . Long Term plans , as their name implies , run for longer terms that can go on for years depending upon the policy . It is estimated that a 20 year old has a 25 % chance of being disabled for some period of time before they reach retirement age . Currently 12 % of the U.S. population is disabled with only 5 % of those disabilities being work related . So , a health problem or off the job accident is the most likely cause of someone becoming disabled . A recent report shows the average Social Security Disability payment is $ 1065 per month and qualifying for Social Security disability is famous for being difficult and time consuming with waits of 2 years for approval not being uncommon and as of 2009 , only 30 % of Social Security disability claims were approved . Relying on Social Security alone to preserve your lifestyle in the event of a disability is unwise . The majority of persons who experience a disabling event can return to work within about 90-days . But , for persons who experience a disability exceeding 90-days the average length of these types of disabling events is 3.2 years ! Ideally , a person will have both short term and long term disability insurance protection . Short term disability insurance will be less expensive and if your budget does n't allow for both coverages I would suggest starting out with short term coverage for the longest coverage period possible . If you are a female I would also recommend that you verify how a prospective short term disability policy treats maternity . Some policies treat maternity as a disabling event while others do not . This can be an important difference for a woman in her child bearing years . 