All About FERS- Thinking About Disability

Hi, my name is Mike Lanway, I'm a financial planner. I'm an expert in federal employee benefits, and I'm here to help you decide what you need to do to make best use of those benefits to your advantage. 

My job as a planner is to help you think about things that you may not want to think about, and one of those things you may not want to think about is disability. So we have thought through how we could help you protect yourself in the event of a disability, and how FERS helps you protect yourself in the event of a disability, and how those things come together. 

Here's what we figured out: annual leave plus your sick leave actually could function as a short term disability income protection plan, so I want you to think about that. Of course, you should use sick leave when you're sick, or family members are sick, or where there's a grieving event in your family. Of course, you should use sick leave. But when you can save it, save it. 

Annual leave, of course, you can take time off. Sure, you need time off, and you want to go on vacation, that's understandable. But the more you accumulate, the better off you are in terms of protecting yourself about the unknown, or the things that we just don't want to think about. So, short term disability protection is something you could buy from another company. 

It's an insurance policy you can get somewhere and if you need to get it, OK, go get it. But, you ought to be thinking about, "well, how can I lessen the need for that insurance and increase my own protection?" The way to do that is to build up your leave. Think of your leave as not only sick leave and vacation pay, but think of it as an opportunity to build up a short term disability income protection plan. Put it on reserve for yourself.

We hope you enjoyed our video series on the different components of your retirement and your benefits. If you want to see more, learn more at your own pace, use our annual benefit statement. You'll see the link at the bottom and within the description. Go there, take a look at it, we think you'll be happy with what you see and and that it's going to help you.