What Recurrent Disability Means for Pregnant Women

Short term disability insurance is a great program for pregnant women to have. It covers mom's normal labor and delivery helping to create maternity leave pay, allowing mom to stay at home bonding with baby without worrying as much about how to pay all those bills. It also covers leave due to pregnancy complications. In this article we will explore the significance of recurrent disability language as it applies to pregnancy and maternity.

Every insurance policy contains important definitions inside the policy and/or in the outline of coverage that your agent will present at time of application. Most short term disability insurance policies will contain language describing a recurrent disability - something that pops up very often for women during pregnancy and maternity situations.

Recurrent Disability Definition

A recurrent disability describes situations where a person is disabled temporarily, returns to work, and then becomes disabled again shortly thereafter for the same or a related condition. This may arise if your doctor orders you to take bed rest early on in your pregnancy, and then allows you to return to work before giving birth. Should this situation arise you will need to know how your insurer handles a recurrent disability.

A recurrent disability will either be treated as a new or a continuation. If it is classified as new you will have to meet a new elimination period, but would reset the clock on your entire benefit period. If it is classified as a continuation, the poles are reversed: there is no new elimination period, but the previous disability would eat into your benefit period.

You policy might have language such as "A recurrent disability will be treated as a continuation of the previous disability, not a new disability, if you have returned to work for less than six months."

Let's look at two examples to clarify how this works. Suppose you have a policy with a two week elimination period, a $3,000 monthly benefit, and a 12 month elimination period. In both examples we look at a bed rest pregnancy disability that last two months due to complications, followed by a c-section delivery. The most important difference is the timing.

Pregnancy Complications With Elimination Period Reset

In scenario one, your doctor orders bed rest for complications at the end of month one of your pregnancy, and you return to work at the end of month three. In scenario two you leave work at month six, return to work at month eight. In both cases you give birth a few days past month nine via c-section which qualifies you for an eight week maternity benefit - less the elimination period.

In scenario one, your first leave ended more than six months before you give birth. Your two week elimination period would be invoked twice rather than just once. Your maternity leave benefit would be a net of six weeks - or $4,168. On the plus side you would still retain more than ten months of income protection in case postpartum disorders prevent your return to work.

Pregnancy Complications with Benefit Period Reset

In scenario two the gap is under six months. This will be treated as a continuation, and your maternity leave benefit will be higher: a net of eight weeks of benefit - or $5,581. On the down side, should postpartum disorders keep you out of work longer, your remaining benefit period will have shrunk to eight months.