Child Disability Insurance - What is it? How does it work?
What is child disability insurance?
As much as we hate to think about it, as a parent or soon-to-be parent, you may one day find yourself in the position of caring for a severely ill or disabled child. Very often this can stretch parents—mentally, physically, and financially—to the limit. In the toughest cases, careers are derailed, finances depleted, and marriages broken. That’s not surprising given the costs involved. In fact, non-medical costs to families (including lost income of parents), for a child under 18 with a rare disease, are estimated to be $46,000 per year. Even in cases where basic care is manageable, providing your child with the resources necessary to thrive and reach their full potential may be out of reach.
The purpose of child disability insurance is to step into this gap and provide cash benefits to support the family and child in whatever is most needed: perhaps replacing income for a parent who takes time off, paying for skilled help, funding specialized therapy or training – or anything else the family chooses.
How child disability insurance works
Child disability insurance is not health insurance for your child. Where health insurance pays direct medical costs, child insurance helps with everything else. This is important, because for children with a disability or rare disease, more than half of costs are non-medical, for things like care help and lost earnings.
Juno child disability insurance pays benefits for immediate critical events, such as a hospital stay that lasts longer than a week. The main part of the benefit, however, is monthly payments to parents to help care for a severely ill or disabled child over a longer period of time. Payments are based on severity, with a maximum payment of $500,000 over a child’s lifetime, and $1,000,000 per family.
As with other insurance policies, there are limitations. For example, children who already have a disability are eligible to receive only benefits related to new events or conditions. And cases that are more manageable because symptoms are mild to moderate are unlikely to qualify for long-term benefits.
No one knows if their child will be healthy or will be dealt a severe disease or long-term disability. When it happens, many families are surprised to learn that except for very poor families, there is almost no financial support provided by either federal or state governments, and often health insurance does not cover all therapies and early interventions that could help their child. The resulting strain on finances, emotions, relationships, and careers has until now been almost entirely shouldered by families.
Child disability insurance changes that formula by offering significant financial support if a child develops severe health problems. This way, families are assisted not only in their day-to-day lives but they also have the chance to invest in early-intervention so that their child can live as full and rich a life as possible.
Juno is the first company to bring child disability insurance to the United States. Juno provides up to $500,000 per child in addition to support services to families of children who develop a severe disease or disability.