Income Protection Journal Podcast: Latest on Disability Insurance, Life Insurance & Long-Term Care Insurance with host Jamie Fleischner, CLU, ChFC, LUTCF
Income Protection Journal Podcast
Claim This Podcastby Jamie K. Fleischner, CLU, ChFC, LUTCF
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18 episodes
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Podcast Overview
Income Protection Journal Podcast: Latest on Disability Insurance, Life Insurance & Long-Term Care Insurance with host Jamie Fleischner, CLU, ChFC, LUTCF
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Publishing Since
12/9/2025
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Recent Episodes
July 16, 2026
Own Occupation Decides Whether an Attorney’s Disability Policy Pays [Podcast]
Most attorneys who buy disability coverage believe own occupation guarantees their benefit the day they can no longer practice law. It is an umbrella term with tiers, and the version inside a group plan, or an individual policy bought without the right rider, pays very differently. Which tier an attorney owns decides whether the disability claim pays in full or drops to a fraction the moment it is filed. Ethan Abramowitz has watched that decision play out from both sides of the table. He spent nearly four years defending insurance carriers at Kirwan, Spellacy and Danner before joining Mark F. Seltzer and Associates, a national practice representing highly skilled professionals in private and group disability matters, where for more than 13 years he has represented physicians, dentists and attorneys whose claims were denied or stalled. Admitted in Florida, Pennsylvania and California, he meets these professionals years after the policy is signed, at the moment the carrier says no. I brought him onto the Income Protection Journal Podcast to work the story backward, from the denied claim to the contract language that caused it. Own-Occupation Coverage Separates an Attorney's Full Benefit From a Modified Trap The phrase attorneys think they understand is the phrase that fails them most often. True own occupation, sometimes called regular occupation, pays the full monthly benefit when a sickness or injury stops you from practicing law, even if you go earn a living doing something else. A modified own-occupation definition pays only while you are not working at all. Step back into any paid work and the claim collapses into a partial or residual analysis, the reduced benefit paid when you can still work but earn less. Own occupation, it's an umbrella term, and underneath that, there's different tiers of coverage. Ethan Abramowitz, a disability insurance attorney with Mark F. Seltzer and Associates for more than 13 years He watched the difference cost one physician most of her income. An OB/GYN in her late 30s developed rheumatoid arthritis, lost her clinical career and accepted a medical directorship with the residency program she had trained in. Because her individual policy carried a modified own-occupation definition rather than a true one, her earnings from the new role were offset against her benefit. The monthly check fell from $15,000 to two or three thousand. A true own-occupation policy would have paid the full $15,000 alongside her new salary with no offset. Attorneys assume this is a doctor's problem because a surgeon's disability looks obvious. It is not. Abramowitz has represented lawyers with Parkinson's disease, traumatic brain injuries and visual impairments who could no longer tolerate the physical and cognitive load of the work, the ability to sit for 10 or 12 hours, read voluminous records and hold a trial schedule together. When a lawyer with that kind of condition wants to teach or consult instead, only a true own-occupation definition lets the benefit and the new income coexist. If I can't be a lawyer, but I could go teach at a law school as an adjunct professor, I can do that and earn a living and do something I'm passionate about. Without the true own-occupation definition, I can't do that without having an offset. Ethan Abramowitz, who represents policyholders in disputed disability claims Group Long-Term Disability Converts an Attorney's Own-Occupation Term After 24 Months The group plan a firm provides is where most attorneys assume they are covered, and it is where the definitions quietly turn against them. An individual policy weighs the material and substantial duties of the occupation as you actually perform it, examining your billing records and your day-to-day work. A group long-term disability plan leans on a national-economy standard drawn from reference works like the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and O*NET, generalized rubrics that ask what a lawyer does, not what you do. The costlier problem sits deeper in the contract. Most employer plans limit own-occupation protection to the first 24 months, then shift the standard to any gainful occupation. When the policy does not spell out a replacement-income formula, that phrase defaults to the Social Security definition of disability. I always joke that if you can be a barista at Starbucks, no disrespect to them. Ethan Abramowitz, a former insurance-defense litigator who spent nearly four years defending insurance carriers Then the carrier can argue you are not disabled. A greeter's wage clears the bar. Group plans answer to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a federal statute that tilts the burden toward the carrier and forces a denied claimant through an internal appeal before any courtroom is available. Covered monthly earnings compound the shortfall. Many group plans count only base salary and exclude bonus, incentive and production pay. Abramowitz described an orthopedic surgeon earning about $800,000 who returned to work at half time. His individual policies paid a 50 percent partial benefit. His group plan, measuring only base compensation, required a 60 percent loss of total earnings before it paid anything, so it paid nothing. Attorneys on a modest salary and a large bonus face the same arithmetic. Four Attorney Disability Policy Features That Decide the Claim Asked which single feature he would refuse to give up on a policy of his own, Abramowitz did not hesitate. The true own-occupation definition comes first, followed by residual disability, a future increase option and a cost-of-living adjustment. Roughly 60 to 70 percent of his cases involve some component of partial disability, and only about 10 percent of disability claims trace to an accident, so the provisions that pay while you are working less matter far more than most buyers expect. Attorneys rate among the most favorable occupation classes for pricing, alongside architects, accountants and engineers. When I build individual own-occupation coverage for attorneys, I treat that pricing advantage as a reason to add the strong features rather than to buy the cheapest contract, because the group plan the firm owns can be cut or canceled at any renewal and does not follow you when you leave. Abramowitz put the same point on a billboard. No attorney should sign a disability policy until they have read the fine print. Ethan Abramowitz, who has represented physicians, dentists and attorneys in denied disability claims for more than a decade The same math decides it for solo practitioners and firm partners, the attorneys with no group plan behind them at all. On the r/personalfinance forum, a self-employed single parent asked whether an own-occupation policy is worth the higher premium, and whether a benefit that runs to age 65 makes sense. Abramowitz did not hedge. Absolutely. If you're self-employed and you're a single parent or a single income household, you're the breadwinner. You need to protect your income. Ethan Abramowitz, who has litigated insurance disputes from both the defense and policyholder side for more than 15 years The full conversation, including his account of a surgeon who kept operating with tremors because he could not afford to stop, and the elimination-period and pre-existing-condition traps that decide a claim before it is filed, is on the Income Protection Journal Podcast. What stays with me is that the outcome of a claim is usually written years earlier, on the day the policy is bought. Editor's note: I refer clients to Ethan Abramowitz when a disability claim is disputed, and some of the professionals he represents hold coverage I placed. Neither of us pays the other for referrals, and he received no compensation for this interview.
June 26, 2026
She Was Talked Out of a Disability Policy. Here’s What It Cost Her.
Group long-term disability through your employer typically pays $2,000 to $15,000 a month before tax, far less than what high-income working professionals actually earn. Independent insurance broker Analisa Cleland explains the four-part group LTD trap, the worksite-product portability path for the uninsurable, and why 92 percent of brokers licensed to sell disability insurance don't.
May 19, 2026
CEO Shares Lessons Learned Watching High Earners Lose Everything [Podcast]
Gretchen Rosenberg has watched agents at her brokerage get sick, stop working, and find out how little income protection they had. When that happened, colleagues sometimes stepped in. They covered showings, managed contracts, and kept deals from unraveling. What they could never replace was her paycheck. Five years ago, Rosenberg launched a foundation at Kentwood Real Estate that provides emergency grants to employees and agents dealing with cancer, car accidents, and medical crises. It has made a real difference for a number of people. It is not income protection for self-employed professionals. And Rosenberg says not enough of her agents carry one. Rosenberg is President and CEO of Kentwood Real Estate, a luxury brokerage serving communities across Colorado’s Front Range from Denver to Boulder, Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, and into the mountain communities of Summit and Grand counties. Kentwood is Colorado’s exclusive affiliate of Home Services of America and one of the largest residential real estate companies in the country. She started her career as a single mother, spent six months without closing a sale, and built her way to leading one of the state’s largest brokerages over nearly 30 years in a production-only industry. I sat down with Rosenberg on the Income Protection Journal Podcast to talk about what she has observed across those three decades: what commission earners assume will protect them when something goes wrong, why those assumptions often fail, and what she did about her own income when she was just starting out and could least afford to be unprepared. Commission Income Has No Floor and No Benefits Real estate agents are independent contractors. Nearly all of them file 1099s, pay their own taxes, and carry no employer benefits. No health insurance. No life insurance. No 401K unless they build one themselves. “The agent is responsible for paying all their taxes, all their insurance,” Rosenberg says. “They have no benefits, they have no health insurance. It’s all on them.” What makes this particularly difficult is the gap between perception and reality. Television shows about real estate create the impression that agents are uniformly wealthy. The reality, Rosenberg says, is that most agents pay listing marketing costs out of pocket before they know whether a house will sell. Every deal is speculation. Every paycheck is earned from scratch. Commission income does not come with a floor. It comes with cycles, market shifts, slow seasons, divorces, and bodies that eventually wear out. Rosenberg has watched agents navigate all of those. What carries the successful ones through, she says, is almost never what they assumed would. “They’re out there protecting their clients, and they forget to protect themselves,” Rosenberg says. What Illness Actually Does to a Commission-Based Income When I asked Rosenberg what she has seen happen to agents who fell ill or were injured and could not work, her answer was direct. “I’ve seen some really sad things happen, and it’s because they’re unprepared,” she says. One agent Rosenberg knows lost her home to IRS liens after spending a commission check before setting aside her estimated taxes. Others who were struck by illness had no reserve to carry them through a year of reduced or no income. The Kentwood Cares Foundation fills some of the gap. But a grant to get through a rough month is a different instrument than coverage that replaces months or years of income when a medical condition prevents someone from working. Most commission earners Rosenberg knows do not have the second thing. “Not enough think about it,” she says, when I asked whether agents in her firm protect their income. “I think they think, ‘I’ll always be able to sell a house.’” That mindset is understandable. Real estate attracts people who believe in their ability to hustle. It is also, Rosenberg says, a physically demanding job. Agents pull up carpet corners at inspections, climb stairs at showings, and work weekends and evenings for clients whose timelines rarely align with anyone’s preferred schedule. The ability to do that work is not guaranteed indefinitely. What High Earners Assume Will Be Enough A common belief among high-earning self-employed professionals is that savings or investment portfolios will carry them through any disruption. The most financially disciplined agents at Kentwood, Rosenberg says, do invest well and are genuinely prepared. Most are not those agents. Housing equity is at an all-time high nationally. But equity does not replace income when someone cannot work. It takes time to access, selling under duress is rarely good timing, and drawing down assets is not the same as having coverage that pays a monthly benefit during a disability. Rosenberg’s advice to anyone transitioning from a salary into commission-based work is to have at least $25,000 to $30,000 in cash reserve before starting. Even after closing a deal, the commission may not arrive for months. “That’s why we have insurance,” she says. I work with self-employed professionals and independent contractors on individual disability insurance built around the income their work generates. The policies that protect commission earners are structured differently from group plans, and understanding those differences matters before something goes wrong. Rosenberg got her own policy in the early months of her career, when she had no income and no certainty about when she would close her first sale. She was a single mother starting over. She has never needed to file a claim. “I’m always grateful I have it,” she says. The specifics of what Rosenberg has seen happen to commission earners who prepared and commission earners who did not, and the conversation she and I had about the gap between earning well and being protected, are in this episode of the Income Protection Journal Podcast. It is a conversation worth hearing before the need arises.
18 total episodes available
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