Life is unexpected, which means you never know when you might be too injured or ill to work. When that happens, it is important to ensure you have enough money to pay for the medical bills and meet your daily expenses while you are trying to get back on your feet.
How to ensure you have this money? One way is to get disability insurance. Breeze is an online company offering disability insurance that can help you meet your daily expenses even if you are too hurt or sick to work.
In this Breeze review, we will discuss the benefits of this online insurance, its pricing plans, and who the coverage plans are suitable for.
What is Breeze?
Breeze is an online company that offers long-term disability insurance. Their coverage plans replace a certain percentage of your lost wages in case you get injured or suffer from an illness that leaves you unable to work for an extended period of time, or even permanently.
Specializing in long-term disability insurance, Breeze has become popular due to its affordable rates. Currently, all policies offered through Breeze are underwritten and issued by either Assurity Life Insurance or Principal Life Insurance.
Since both of these highly-rated carriers have been around for over a century, Breeze is a trustworthy option for people who want to secure sufficient amounts of money for unprecedented times.
What Does Breeze Cover?
The details for each plan offered by Breeze differ but, overall, the insurance helps replace a portion of your income in case of a life-altering injury, illness, or accident.
If you are involved in a disabling event and your claim is approved, you will begin to receive benefits after your policy’s elimination period, which is the waiting period following an injury or accident.
The rules are quite similar to what you would expect in regular insurance coverage. If you want to receive a higher payout from your policy, you will have to pay more in premiums. Here are some other factors that determine your rates:
- Benefit amount
- Benefit period
- Health issues
- Age
- Lifestyle
- Location
- Waiting or elimination period – it refers to the time you have to wait before you start getting your monthly payments from the insurance plan
Breeze offers disability insurance for a number of occupations, including accountants, software engineers, startup employees, doctors, nurses, attorneys, architects, and others. This includes the self-employed, small business owners, independent contractors, and gig workers.
Breeze Disability Insurance
Breeze’s main offering is disability insurance. According to the company, there are three main reasons you should choose their disability insurance plans:
- Customer Support: If it’s your first time getting an insurance plan, you may need help, and Breeze’s customer support ensures that all your questions are answered.
- Online Process: Breeze currently has the only fully-online disability insurance process. Get a free quote in 30 seconds, apply for a policy in 10 minutes, and receive a coverage decision. Along with making the process much smoother, it also saves the customer a trip to the insurance company’s office.
- Affordable Policies: Breeze prides itself in offering affordable insurance policies so that eligible individuals can have an insurance plan to keep them afloat during difficult times.
How It Works
If you want to apply for Breeze disability insurance, you just have to go to the website and click Check My Price. After that, you will be asked a few questions based on which Breeze will give you customized rates.
For instance, in the first step, you will be asked what type of worker you are. You can choose from an independent contractor, business owner, or employee.
Then, you have to provide your personal information, such as the social security number, email, and contact details. Check which coverage plan is best for your needs and apply for that option. If you are eligible, Breeze will let you know soon.
The process takes around ten minutes, and you can also use your mobile phone to apply. If approved, eligible applicants may skip the medical exam and receive same-day coverage.
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Critical Illness Insurance
Along with disability insurance, Breeze also offers critical illness insurance for ailments like cancer, heart attack, and stroke. The major benefit of critical illness insurance is that you get a direct lump sum when you are diagnosed with a covered medical condition.
Breeze claims that it is important to have this insurance since 60% of Americans do not have even enough saved up to pay for an unexpected $1,000 expense.
So, if you suffer a heart attack and find yourself in a hospital bed, you won’t have to worry how you will pay the bills next month. Breeze keeps you covered.
You can also use the benefit from your critical illness insurance policy to support your daily expenses or pay out-of-pocket medical bills.
How It Works
In order to check your eligibility for critical illness insurance, you have to do the following:
- Start by checking your rates. When you apply for critical illness insurance, you will be asked a few questions. Breeze will give you a rate depending on your answers.
- Finish the application process and get a coverage decision from the company. If approved for coverage, all you have to do is pay your monthly premium to keep your coverage in force.
- Then, if you are diagnosed with a serious condition, you can file a claim to get your insurance benefits.
One of the major benefits of using Breeze is that the company uses technology to offer quick coverage decisions. So, you will not have to wait for a long time to hear back from them, as you would from any regular insurer.
In fact, people who are eligible for the coverage plans will get an indication instantly.
Covered Conditions
Breeze critical illness insurance plan covers the following conditions:
- Heart attack
- Major organ transplant
- Angioplasty
- Stroke
- Paralysis
- Coma
- Kidney (renal) failure
- Coronary artery bypass surgery
- Advanced Alzheimer’s disease
- Invasive cancer
- Non-invasive cancer
Short-term Disability Service
Breeze is in the process of offering short-term disability services to people who only get injured temporarily. The plan pays you weekly benefits starting seven days after your injury and includes a maternity leave benefit.
The payments last up to six months.
Currently, there is a waitlist for this coverage, and people who are interested in it can join the waitlist.
Breeze Features
Breeze has a lot of features that make it a better alternative to other disability and critical illness insurance options. Here are some of these features:
- Quick Application: Part of the reason people avoid going to traditional insurers is the amount of time it takes to get your policy. From talking to the insurance agent to waiting for approval, it takes a few days. On the other hand, the Breeze application process takes ten to fifteen minutes.
- Automated Underwriting: Along with being quick, the underwriting process at Breeze is also quite streamlined. With automated underwriting, Breeze makes it very easy for eligible applicants to get approved for a policy quickly without review by a human.
- Flexible Policies: Another thing that makes Breeze better than some other options is the company’s flexible plans. Anyone from the age of 18 to 60 can apply for a policy with different rates. Additionally, there are several different waiting periods you can choose from. Breeze also guarantees renewability for the plan until age 65 or 67.
- Affordable Pricing: Since Breeze operates online, the company’s overhead costs are low. That is why they offer more affordable pricing as compared to other insurers.
- Additional Riders: Along with flexible terms and remarkable pricing, Breeze also has supplemental riders for its policies. These include catastrophic disability benefits, automatic benefit increases, non-cancelable features, and critical illness benefits.
- Free Resources: Insurance can be confusing; disability and critical illness coverage are no exceptions. Breeze’s website has free resources featuring helpful content and an FAQ section to help you learn everything you need to know.
Breeze Pricing
Breeze costs are different for each customer, depending on their lifestyle, age, gender, and other factors.
If you are a 25-year-old male applying for a 5-year benefit period, $1000 monthly benefit, and 90-day waiting period, you may be eligible to pay just $9 per month for coverage. However, this is not the same for everyone.
For instance, a female with the same conditions will have to pay more since, statistically, women are more prone to disabilities. When you apply for disability insurance, you will have to answer 10 questions, and doing so will tell you how much you have to pay every month.
If you are unsure about which plan you should choose, you can always get in touch with the company’s customer support since they are always available and very helpful.
While Breeze does allow eligible applicants to skip the medical exam, there are some cases where a medical exam will be required before you can get coverage. Here are some scenarios:
- You are 18 to 50 years of age and require coverage of more than $4,000 a month.
- You are 51 to 55 years of age and require coverage of more than $2,000 per month.
- You are 56 to 60 years of age and require coverage of more than $1,000 a month.
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Who is Breeze For?
Breeze is ideal for people who want to have a safety net in case they get disabled in the future and are unable to earn for themselves or their families. People who are not getting disability insurance from their employees or companies should apply for coverage through Breeze.
Moreover, Breeze is ideal for self-employed individuals since they do not get any kind of employer-sponsored benefits such as disability insurance. Some people are more prone to getting disabled based on where they work and their age. So, they can opt for Breeze if they feel it would be a good option for them.
Since Breeze is online, it would also be good for millennials or younger people who prefer getting everything online rather than sitting through long discussions with an insurance agent.
Who is Breeze not For?
Breeze is not for people who are already disabled and cannot work. You must currently earn an income and work at least 30 hours per week to qualify for coverage.
While Breeze does have licensed customer support you can speak to by phone, email, or text, the company may not be suitable for individuals who prefer going to an insurance agent and talking to them in-person before getting a coverage plan.
Pros of Breeze
Here are some of the pros of getting insurance coverage from Breeze:
- Underwritten by Trusted Carriers: All Breeze policies are underwritten and issued by either Assurity Life Insurance or Principal Life Insurance, which are highly-regarded insurance providers. Thus, you can be sure that you are not dealing with an inexperienced company.
- Great Coverage: Breeze’s coverage plans are quite great, and many people find something that works for them.
- Affordable Rates: Breeze also has affordable rates, which helps individuals find a policy that works for their budget.
- Flexibility: With plenty of additional riders, Breeze offers a lot of flexibility in its plans. So, you can choose different options to make the plan as customized for you as possible.
- Fast Quotes: You no longer have to wait for days to see your real insurance rates. Instead, you can get your quote and submit your application for review in just 15 minutes.
Cons of Breeze
Here are some cons of this insurance company:
- Online Long-Term Disability Insurance: Not everyone is disabled for years to come. However, Breeze only sells long-term disability insurance at the moment.
- New Company: Although the company’s underwriters have been in the market for more than a century, Breeze itself is quite young. Being two years old, the company is comparatively new, and not everyone will be ready to trust it.
- Could be Expensive: Depending on your lifestyle and some other factors, you might get a higher rate when applying for Breeze. So, costs are not always cheap.
Final Verdict
To sum up, Breeze seems like a good option for people who want disability insurance but would rather do it online than go to an insurance company. The application process is pretty simple and swift, which makes everything a ‘Breeze.’
After considering the pros and cons of Breeze, it’s up to you to decide if you want to get disability insurance from them.
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