Financial fables: The importance of disability insurance

It begins like any other day.

Dr. Dys A. Belleite—a three-year veteran of emergency medicine in the Greater Toronto Area—wakes up and starts getting ready to go to work. He brushes his teeth side to side the same way he does every morning.

He gets dressed. Today, he chooses light grey sweatpants and a black Billie Eilish t-shirt. He makes himself a coffee and another one for his spouse—Dr. Opraty Nitycaust, a family physician in the GTA as well.

Opraty’s clinic doesn’t begin until later in the afternoon. She’s covering the after-hours clinic of her Family Health Group patients. The pair have three children: a three-year-old girl, a two- year-old boy and a six-month-old girl. Life’s busy, but they manage with the help of Opraty’s 68-year-old mother Gertrude, who lives with the family.

The family lives in a 5,000 sq. ft. home they bought last year. It was pricey but is just the house they’ve always wanted. For this luxury, they settled on a $3.2 million mortgage, putting down an $800,000 in deposit. Prior to moving in, they lived in a condo in North York.

After enjoying his aromatic coffee, Dys sets out on his bicycle to ride to the emergency department. He’s a conscientious cyclist. He wears his helmet and respects the rules of the road—every driver’s dream cyclist. Why shouldn’t he be? Dys is an emergency physician after all.

At the intersection just a block from his hospital, Dys is cut-off by a truck turning right. Dys was in his blind spot. He falls off his bicycle and lands heavily on his right side, all the weight on his right hip. The truck runs over Dys’ left leg and knee. Luckily, he was wearing helmet on and doesn’t hit his head. But Dys is in a lot of pain and can’t get up. He’s taken to the closest trauma centre, where he’ss diagnosed with right hip fracture and left distal femur fracture. He’s wheeled to the OR for orthopaedic surgery.

After a short stay at the hospital, Dys returns home to this family, in the care of his spouse and mother-in-law. As you can imagine, Dys isn’t allowed to bear any weight and can only mobilize in a wheelchair. Clearly, he can’t return work until he fully heals from both fractures. He feels helpless, useless. He’s depressed but tries to stay strong for his family and children.

Opraty is unable to manage and feels overwhelmed. Her clinic hours suffer as she strives to care for Dys, her children and her mother’s medical appointments. She’s worried about monthly bills and mortgage. Prior to Dys’ injury, they could meet all of these monthly expenses. Since the accident, they’re struggling to meet their financial obligations. Further, they decide to engage a nanny to help with the family chores and the children. This deepens their monthly financial burden.

At this point, the pair have no choice but to exhaust their home Line of Credit (LOC). They also apply for another secured LOC to keep the monthly cashflow balanced.

Opraty’s income has also suffered as she’s shifted her attention from work to helping her husband heel. They have no savings to fall back on, no emergency fund. Neither have disability insurance. Their previous savings all went to the downpayment on their new house.

In his follow-up with the surgeon, Dys’ learns his hip fracture isn’t healing. He needs another surgery. Due to massive loss of blood from this second surgery, Dys requires blood transfusions. He’s transferred to the ICU where hemodynamic instability and sepsis prolong his stay. Finally, after eight days in ICU, he’s transferred down to the general floor where the rest of his hospitalization is uneventful.

Dys heads home to heal and still can’t bear any weight for another six weeks. After months of rehabilitation, he’s able to ambulate with assistance of a cane. It’s been a long journey, but after 12 months away from his work, he finally returns to work at half time. He’s not as fast as he used to be and can’t ambulate as confidently and comfortably. His income from his emergency work is now 60% of where it used to be. Opraty returns to full-time work. The family keeps the live-in nanny.

This story may be fiction, but it represents a scenario that happens very frequently in our medical community across Canada in some form.

Are you about to be Dys and Opraty? Do you know colleagues like Dys and Opraty? I’m sure you do.

Dr. Vu Kiet Tran is an experienced physician hoping to banish the taboo of openly discussing financial security and wellness. He’s the founder and host of the “How is my financial health, doc?” podcast.

Disclaimer: The Financial Fables series is entirely fictional He has lectured to groups of physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, medical trainees, pharmacists, marketers, corporate officers, and chief executive officers, and board directors, and financial planners and advisors.

Dr. Tran offers sessions at major conferences, live courses, private small groups, or corporate events.