Don’t Sell Yourself Short

June 28, 2011 | Subscribe to our RSS Feed

The day to day operation of your dental practice is hard work.  You have to manage your staff to perform efficiently, you need to make sure the schedule is profitable and that you are paid for performing your dental work.  And you need to keep your costs under control to maximize your profit.

What would happen if you were not able to perform any of those duties?  Are you sufficiently protected if you should experience a long term absence or, even worse, die?

You need to have adequate insurance coverage to guard against a calamitous occurrence.  In the case of a long-term temporary disability you would need personal disability insurance to replace your lost income.  In addition you need to have office overhead insurance to pay operating expenses while you cannot work.

Hopefully you can hire a temporary dentist to treat your patients until you can return to work.  While your dental practice will probably not be as profitable as it was prior to your injury with adequate personal disability and office overhead insurance you and your dental practice most likely can survive until you return.

Make sure any insurance policy you purchase not only has adequate financial reimbursement but also has own occupation coverage.  Then if you cannot work as a dentist you can still collect insurance in a new job.  There may be other riders that would be beneficial to increase your coverage.

Say the unthinkable happened and you died suddenly.  Would your family and dental practice be protected?  Do you have adequate life insurance?  Your dental practice would plummet in value and if it could be sold quickly, which may not happen, it would surely be a fire sale.

In speaking with Christine Schmitz, CPA, PFS, CFP, LTCP who assists Glass Jacobson clients with their insurance needs there are many factors that influence one’s life insurance needs.  Some of these factors are years left until retirement, family needs such as children’s education and housing, dental practice debt and personal debt, retirement savings and other factors.  No two dentists will need the same amount of coverage.

Don’t sell yourself short and purchase the lowest cost insurance policy.  While additional riders, those so- called bells and whistles, may add additional cost, that additional coverage can give you peace of mind in knowing that you have adequately protected yourself and your family.  Your insurance coverage should be part of a larger financial plan that can guide you through your dental practice career from the early stages to retirement and beyond.

If you have any insurance or financial questions you can contact me or Christine or any of the other people who work in the Glass Jacobson investment advisor area.

Questions?

larry.goldberg@glassjacobson.com

christine.schmitz@glassjacobsonia.com