can music students get disability insurance like medical students who get $4000/month

College Majors Music Major
1

<p>can music students get disability insurance like medical students who get $4000/month for 7 to 10 years?</p>

<p>For an average music major student, he/she would have spent tens of thousands
of dollars by college or graduate school. </p>

<p>Examples:</p>

<p>(1) private lessons between from 1st grade to high school graduation
(2) instruments, plus maintenance/repairs/wear&tear
(3) transportation driving to/from lessons, auditions, competitions, etc
(4) 4 years of music school is easily over $100,000
(5) graduate school, another $60,000?
(even if part or all of the tution is paid for by grants/scholarships, someone
still paid for it)
(6) transportation to/from college for holidays, auditions, etc
(7) thousands of hours spend by the student and parents</p>

<p>I'm no CPA, but that's easily a quarter of million dollars spent. For a dedicated
music student, I suspect he/she doesn't possess any other training/skills for a
decent paying job, in the event of a career-ending disability. (technically, before
the career even begins) Even a minor disability such as the loss of use of a
hand means the end for a musical career. </p>

<p>That's why I started searching for disability insurance for music students.
What I found was shocking to me... There's almost nothing. Even at the top
10 music schools in this country. Sure, there are private plans that's sold
by insurance companies, but at astronomical costs.</p>

<p>By comparison, a medical school student can get cheap($200/year) or even
free disability insurance that pays $4000/month for 7 to 10 years.(or even longer)<br>
Most are sponsored by medical schools and/or associations. Doctors depend on
their hands as much as music students, no?</p>

<p>One prime example is a large university with a famous music school AND a
famous medical school in the Midwest. (not going to name it, because that's
not what this thread is about) Music school students have nothing... while the
medical school students get $2000/month coverage that pays up to 7 years.<br>
The plan is only a couple hundred bucks a year.</p>

<p>If anyone here(students, teachers, parents) have info on this subject, please
post it here...</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>Interesting read: (substitute the word "medical student" with "music student" and it's still true)</p>

<p><a href="http://www.doctordisability.com/blog/2012/11/why-medical-students-need-disability-insurance/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.doctordisability.com/blog/2012/11/why-medical-students-need-disability-insurance/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>This is a UK organization but I thought you might be interested in it.
[Music</a> Grants and Funding - How We Help | Musicians Benevolent Fund](<a href=“http://www.helpmusicians.org.uk/help_you/]Music”>http://www.helpmusicians.org.uk/help_you/)</p>

3

wouldn’t such coverage be available by joining a musicians union or something like that?

I came here searching for this issue, after reading about violinist Rachel Barton Pine in a CNN report from two days ago. http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/13/health/turning-points-rachel-barton-pine/index.html?eref=rss_latest

with two kids both in music majors, should I be looking for this kind of insurance? my own insurance agent said the only thing she came up with are for “professional” musicians.

4

Have you looked at tuition refund insurance? I don’t know any students who have disability insurance: that must come from the employment part of med school-? For my kids, I get tuition refund insurance, which refunds everything paid plus financial aid amounts.

5

Standard disability insurance protects against job loss in the case of a disability. The benefit is based on income. No income no benefit. The income is a defined insurable interest.

I would guess that the insurance for medical students is maybe a special lines insurance or any offering through a professional association. There is probably the volume and practice of offering it. With such a low premium it is probably tightly written and used rarely.

Celebrities can insure their legs, abs, fingers etc. it is typically done by lloyds of London but alas our budding kids would not qualify as they are not famous yet.

I work in finance and insurance and would say not too bother. I don’t think you have a defined insurable interest yet. But you are free to correct me if you find an insurer.

6

I can understand the concern, but the same thing holds true of any college student, if they suffer some major disability, what if a student ends up paralyzed, or becomes blind or something? What if a kid was getting a computer science degree, and had an accident where they couldn’t really do that any more, like both their arms become paralyzed? (and yes, I realize they might still be able to do it, using voice recognition to be able to program, but let’s assume they can’t). They would have spent a lot of money on a specific field that they wouldn’t be able to do any more.

What would happen is basically the same thing, they would need to re-adjust their life to the way they are. They still would have a college degree, and that can get you a job in something else based on that, given as people have talked on here before about, a lot of degrees are not career specific.

Think about this way, given the nature of music, even without becoming disabled, there are significant odds that within X years of graduating, they will have moved out of music, it is the nature of it. Within 10 years, if I remember the number correctly, something like at least 80% of Juilliard graduates are no longer in music…and they would have to adjust careers, so whether it was they couldn’t break into the field, or they for example got focal dystonia and couldn’t play, they would have to utilize the skills they had to do something else, whether it might be grad school in something, or get a job based on having a college degree with the skills they do have.

I agree with bridgenail, while I understand the thought behind this, the same would be true of any catastrophic injury where a college student, let’s say just after graduating, gets seriously hurt or disabled, and as far as I know there isn’t widespread disability insurance for college students as a whole. That the Medical association does that is interesting and I applaud it, but it isn’t common out there, basically if a music student is hurt like that it is the same as if any college student had a major catastrophe, they would do the best they could. As bridgenail said, disability insurance usually only is there when you are working and have income, it doesn’t operate on potential earnings that are lost by not even getting to be able to work in the field.