State Disability Insurance

Disability insurance (DI) provides eligible workers, unable to work because of a disability, monies to replace some of the wages they were earning. This disability can be a non-industrial injury, a pregnancy complication or a condition resultant from an illness.

Several states require state disability insurance be provided for employees. Most states divide coverage up according to three differing plans, state, voluntary or elective policies.

For instance, most employees in California are covered by the state plan. Employers and employee groups can opt for a private voluntary plan, but only if the majority of the workers and the company votes it in.

There are several individuals who are not covered by the state plan. These people could include general partners of a small corporation or Limited Liability Company, some employers who are outside state coverage jurisdiction, self-employed individuals and people who are part of a family business.

If these workers want disability insurance they need to purchase an elective insurance plan. If neither your employer nor your state offers state disability insurance, you might want to purchase it for yourself, just to protect your wages in times of crisis.

State disability insurance is also called temporary disability insurance or short-term disability benefits. The reason is the disability condition is not expected to last for a very long period of time. These policies provide workers with partial wage replacement for disabling non-occupational illnesses and injuries which aren’t expected to last more than a few weeks.

Currently, only five states and one territory require employers to provide short-term disability insurance. They are California, New Jersey, Hawaii, New York, Rhode Island and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Workers’ compensation insurance usually covers both short and long term disability.

Workers’ comp also covers occupational illnesses and injuries. Occupational illnesses and injuries are those that happen while an employee is performing their duties as a part of their job with a company.

State back-to-work disability assistance programs are in most cases administered by divisions of state labor departments such as unemployment offices. Now, your employee rights probably don’t allow you to collect disability insurance and unemployment benefits at the same time, if your disability condition was caused by forces outside the workplace.

However, your state may allow you to draw unemployment; and free back-to-work assistance like food stamps, vocational rehabilitation, job search assistance, work aids and self-employment assistance.

Since many of the questions related to state disability insurance have legal answers, a nice feature that the internet offers is free legal advice from lawyers online.

The same is true for tax advisory questions, and there are links to accountants and attorneys. There is also a free online legal dictionary available at www.USLaw.com .

Disability payments are cash payments only. Medical care is the responsibility of the claimant.
In most cases benefits are paid for a maximum of 26 weeks of disability during any 52-week, or one year period.

There is usually a seven day waiting period at the outset where no benefits are paid. Benefits then begin on the eighth consecutive day of any disability.