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Disability insurance benefits provide a critical lifeline for professionals who are unable to continue practicing their profession due to a disability. But your benefits may not cover everything. Many people find it helpful to have additional sources of support when dealing with a disability.

Professionals who are struck with a disability relatively early in their careers may find it beneficial to open a tax-advantaged ABLE account. Pennsylvania has just expanded eligibility for these accounts, so it is helpful to understand what they are and how they can be used.

Achieving a Better Life Experience

ABLE is an acronym for “Achieving a Better Life Experience,” the name given to this type of savings program authorized over a decade ago. The program was created by the federal government but is managed by individual states, so some requirements can vary from state to state. An ABLE account allows individuals with disabilities to invest funds that can grow tax-free. These funds can be used for any qualified disability expenses.

Qualified disability expenses include more than medically necessary expenses. Essentially, funds in an ABLE account can be used for basic living expenses and to benefit others as well as the individual with a disability. Funds might be used for expenses related to:

• Housing
• Transportation
• Assistive technology
• Personal support services
• Financial management
• Wellness expenses
• Legal fees
• Administrative services
• Education or employment training

In Pennsylvania, individuals who contribute to PA ABLE accounts can deduct up to $19,000 per year on their state income taxes. The account is exempt from Pennsylvania inheritance tax, and qualified distributions from the account are not subject to state or federal income tax.

Up to $100,000 placed in an ABLE account is not considered a “countable” resource for establishing eligibility for means-tested benefits such as Medicaid. While this may not be an immediate concern for most professionals, it is helpful to have in place as a security measure.

Expansion of Eligibility

Up until the start of 2026, the only individuals eligible to open an ABLE account were those who had met the disability requirements before the age of 26. Now, eligibility for these accounts is open to anyone with a disability that began before they reached age 46. This expansion makes these accounts an option for many more professionals.

While the age requirement has expanded, other requirements have not changed. To be eligible to open an ABLE account, an individual must demonstrate that they have a qualifying disability that began before the cut-off age, now 46. The disabling condition must “severely limit” the individual’s ability to function, and it must be expected to last more than 12 months or to result in death.

Individuals can demonstrate this qualification by showing they have been approved for disability benefits under the Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income programs. If they have not been approved for benefits, eligibility can be proven by other means. Pennsylvania requires individuals to have a written diagnosis signed by a doctor who meets the Social Security Administration’s criteria.

Developing a Comprehensive Plan of Protection

Many professionals give little thought to what would happen in case of disability until it is too late. That’s understandable because no one wants to contemplate a future of limitations, but that short-sighted behavior can leave them scrambling to survive later. The National Disability Institute reports that when someone suffers a work disability, their household requires approximately 28% more income to maintain the same standard of living than households that do not have a member suffering from a disability. The cost of care and other expenses are often far higher than people expect.

So, if you want to be able to maintain your standard of living in the future, you need to ensure that you have plans in place to provide resources at a higher level than you’ve been expending without a disability.

Disability insurance provided through an employer can be helpful, but it is often far from sufficient. Many professionals wisely choose to purchase private individual disability insurance, which gives them greater control over the terms of their policy and potentially much greater benefits.

Review and Understand the Terms of Your Disability Insurance Policy

To properly prepare for the future and ensure that you will be able to meet expenses if a disability interferes with your ability to work, you need a plan. For most professionals, that plan includes some form of disability insurance. It is important to read and understand all the terms of your policy so that you know when it will provide benefits, how much those benefits will be, and how long the policy will continue to pay. These terms can vary widely between policies.

For instance, some policies will pay benefits if you are unable to perform the duties of your own established occupation, while others will not pay unless you are unable to work in any occupation. That is a huge difference. Insurance companies try to avoid paying when they can, making it increasingly difficult for professionals to purchase a genuine “own occupation” policy. 

Sometimes the language of the policy (or the promotional materials) will make it appear that it provides benefits when a disability interferes with the ability to practice your chosen profession, but there are loopholes that allow the company to say that you are ineligible if you can perform some of the incidental tasks associated with your profession. A physician who has lost functional vision, for example, might have spent some time dictating information about medical procedures, and since the doctor was still able to speak, the insurance company might insist that the doctor was capable of performing some tasks of the occupation. It is not logical, but insurance companies do not always apply logic in the conventional sense. It often takes negotiation with an attorney to get an insurance company to interpret its policy reasonably and abide by the terms.

Combining Disability Insurance with Other Sources of Support

To determine how much disability coverage you might want to purchase, consider your potential needs and other sources of income or support. While this could include an ABLE account, these accounts are only available to those who become injured early in their careers, so this is not an option that is easy to count on during the planning process. Other forms of savings could be used as part of the plan, of course, or income from rental property or other sources. The point is that it is crucial to look at the big picture of income and expenses, then determine where disability insurance fits into the scheme.

Seltzer & Associates Understands Disability Insurance

At Selzer & Associates, we have decades of experience helping injured professionals when their insurance companies fail to fulfill their policy obligations. But we can help at other stages in the process, too. If you’d like us to review your policy to help you understand the implications of the fine print, we would be happy to do so. If you need to file a claim and are not sure how to start the process effectively, we can help with that, too.

To schedule a free consultation and learn more about the assistance our team can provide with disability insurance, just call us at 888-699-4222 or contact us online now.