ALPA LOL insurance

[lumax]

At the airline I was at, STD was, like you said, 6 months. However, LTD (medical retirement) continues until age 60. At that point it will be recalculated as a normal retirement. This is per ALPA contract.
Under LTD you can't work at the company without giving up your LTD. However, you can work anywhere else doing anything, except as a commercial pilot, and still receive your LTD. This is basically insurance covering LOL not your ability to work.

 

[BOOZENEWS]

Almost EVERY LTD plan requires you to be disabled to the point where you can't hold ANY job. It's designed to be a stop-gap measure so that if you're DISABLED, you and your family don't lose your house, etc.

Read the fine print on those things; that's why most financial professionals will tell you that it's a sucker bet, wasting money you could otherwise be investing.

What if you lost your medical and then found a non-flying job that payed a lot less? Would LTD then pay you the difference then?

 

[Lear70]

Again, it really depends on what your LTD plan is through your employer and what the union contract says. Sometimes they're different coverages, sometimes not.

My experience has mostly been with plans that are set up to where your MEDICAL and your company LTD are two COMPLETELY separate things. The LTD doesn't recognize that just because you lost your license to fly that you are "disabled". To draw Long Term Disability at a company you have to basically be unable to WORK doing ANYTHING. Even being a Walmart greeter.

Short Term Disability usually is being "temporarily unable to perform your primary job functions", which means flying an airplane in our case.

You are MUCH better off having this discussion with your individual union's Insurance Committee Chair; they will know what your company does and doesn't do and whether Loss Of License will help or hurt. In our case at AirTran, having ALPA LOL is actually a bad thing.

If we had that option at Kalitta, it would be a great thing to have, I actually opted into AFLAC's STD and LTD plans after I got here because of what happened to my shoulder. Better coverage than most ALPA products for about half the price.