When faced with a disability, most people have to turn to sick leave, personal savings, Social Security or possibly Worker’s Compensation to help them replace their lost income.

Disability protection from The Standard can help your employees by supplementing other sources of income and providing assistance and even incentives to return to work as soon as possible.

Your employees benefit because our policies help protect them financially from disabilities resulting from a covered physical disease, injury, pregnancy or mental disorder, As an employer, you benefit by providing a highly valued benefit that will help you attract and retain high-caliber employees.

Our flexible plan design and claims management expertise all come to you at competitive group rates.

LTD Insurance Features

• Up to 70% salary replacement
• Maximum monthly benefit amount up to $25,000
• Benefit waiting periods ranging from 0 day to two years
• Definitions of disability covering the employee’s own occupation, any occupation and "zero-day" partial disability
• Variable plan designs: one, two, three, five-year and to age 65 own occupation periods
• “Own Specialty” definition of disability for physicians and attorneys
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) included for groups with 10 — 2,500 covered lives¹

Additional Cost Options

• Assisted Living Benefit: increases the salary replacement level up to 80 or 100 percent of insured predisability earnings (up to a maximum benefit amount)
• Housing Assistance Benefit: provides an additional 25 percent of predisability earnings to pay for rent or mortgage (up to a maximum benefit amount)
• Lifetime Security Benefit: extends the maximum benefit period to the severely disabled employee’s lifetime
• Medical Expense Benefit: provides an additional flat monthly benefit for a specified maximum benefit period to help cover medical or other expenses incurred by disabled employees

Special Services Available

• Reports Online^SM Claims Reports: provides access to claim status, payment and experience data
• The Standard SecureCard^SM benefit payment option: gives eligible employees all the convenience of a bank debit card and eliminates worries over the possibility of benefit checks being delayed, lost or stolen (Not available in New York)

Voluntary LTD

The Standard offers Voluntary LTD plans so employees can decide what works best for them. The Standard provides enrollment and product materials that help employers communicate the value of voluntary coverage to their employees.

Some employees are traditionally viewed as at higher risk for disability insurance, such as retail workers or those who perform physically demanding jobs. Many of their employers assume that LTD insurance is just too expensive.

If you’re one of these employers we understand your situation, so we offer "Basic LTD" insurance, a nonconventional LTD plan that includes many traditional LTD plan features.

Basic LTD insurance from The Standard is designed to keep your coverage up and your costs down

• Basic LTD offers a benefit equal to 30 percent of an employee’s predisability earnings — but benefits are not reduced by Social Security, work earnings or other income.
• Although the plan's benefit percentage is lower than the one offered by more traditional LTD plans, the absence of deductible income makes it very competitive, especially for lower-earning employees. Disabled employees also receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, for example, may receive a higher level of income replacement under the Basic LTD plan than they would under a traditional LTD plan.

Basic LTD does include these traditional LTD plan features:

• Employee Assistance Program (for plans with 10 — 2,500 covered employees)¹
• Reasonable Accommodation Expense Benefit
• Rehabilitation Plan Provision
• Personalized service and expert claim handling
• Employer or employee-paid
• Two-year rate guarantee

Looking for Options? Look no Further

A "one size fits all" Disability insurance plan may not be the best solution for a growing, diverse workforce. That's why Disability Employee Choice from The Standard is a compelling option for an employer-paid Long Term Disability (LTD) insurance plan.

Disability Employee Choice from The Standard

• Lets you offer two options within a single plan, at the same cost to you
• Allows your employees to select the benefit design that is best for them, based on their situation
• Can increase employee retention and goodwill

The Standard offers two Disability Employee Choice employer-paid plans each with two options to employees. (Not all plans are available in New York)

Plan 1

• Plan 1/Choice 1 is a stand-alone LTD plan with a high LTD Benefit and Maximum Benefit Period To Age 65 — but with a long Benefit Waiting Period. This plan may work best for long-term employees who have accrued enough personal leave benefits or personal savings to bridge the longer Benefit Waiting Period and provides a higher benefit.
• Plan 1/Choice 2 is a combined STD/LTD plan with a low overall benefit and a Maximum Benefit Period of either To Age 65 or five years — but with a significantly shorter Benefit Waiting Period than Choice 1. The combined STD/LTD plan may work best for employees who have very little personal leave accrued, helping them to access benefits more quickly. In addition, the LTD Benefit Waiting Period may be fulfilled while receiving STD benefits, enabling the opportunity for a seamless transition.

Plan 2

• Plan 2/Choice 1 has a high LTD Benefit and Maximum Benefit Period To Age 65 — but with a long Benefit Waiting Period. An employee with a significant amount of savings or accrued personal leave may be able to wait out the longer Benefit Waiting Period to obtain the higher benefit amount.
• Plan 2/Choice 2 has a lower LTD Benefit and a Maximum Benefit Period of either To Age 65 or five years — but with a significantly shorter Benefit Waiting Period. An employee with immediate financial demands may find this a better choice.

Claims Management Services

The hard work in disability insurance comes when a claim occurs. Your employees need their benefits paid accurately and promptly and you’re interested in getting that employee back to work as soon as feasibly possible.

The Standard’s claims management services know this so we work hard to promote and enable the return of disabled employees to a productive life whenever possible. A knowledgeable team of benefits analysts, vocational case managers and nurse case managers provides early screening, assesses disability duration and identifies return-to-work opportunities. As a result, disabled employees may return to work sooner, and employers regain their valuable employees and contain disability claims costs.

Our LTD plans include a number of features that help and encourage employees to return to work.

• Rehabilitation plan provision: Pays some or all expenses incurred by employees for approved training and education; family care; and job search and other job-related expenses that support a return to work.
• Reasonable accommodation expense benefit: Reimburses employers up to $25,000 for approved worksite modifications that are made on behalf of a disabled employee and enable the employee to return to work.
• Return to work incentive: Provides employees with an incentive to return to work by enabling them to earn up to 100 percent of their pre-disability income through a combination of monthly benefits and work earnings during the first 12 (or optional 24) months after returning to work.
• Return to work responsibility: Establishes a clear expectation for partially disabled employees to return to work if they can earn at least 20 percent of indexed pre-disability earnings.
• Temporary recovery: Allows employees who suffer a relapse and become disabled again from the same cause or causes to reopen their claims without serving a new benefit waiting period.
• Recovering from a disability is no easy feat, but at The Standard we have the people and benefits in place to make the transition back into the mainstream of life as smooth as possible.