Disability Insurance Awareness Month starts Monday

Insurers, agents and brokers are getting ready to fight to bring attention to the need for income protection.

The disability insurance community will start the Disability Insurance Awareness Month 2016 (DIAM) campaign Sunday.

See also: 5 videos to boost your inner Disability Awareness warrior

Life Happens set up the DIAM program to complement its Life Insurance Awareness Month campaign program.

As DIAM coordinators prepare to launch the 10th campaign, the disability insurance community faces the effects of low interest rates on disability insurance issuers’ finances. The community also faces a struggle to get the attention of employers and workers as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) continues to reshape the major medical market.

Anthem Inc. (NYSE:ANTM), the giant health insurer, has hired Ketchum, a major public relations firm, to help it contribute to the campaign effort. Anthem is working to tell the media about American consumers’ tendency to underestimate the risk of disability.

Consumers tend to think they are more likely to suffer a home robbery than disability, even though today’s 20-year-olds are about nine times more likely to become disabled before they turn 65 than a U.S. home is to be burgled in any given year, according to Anthem’s media representatives.

The Plus Group Inc., a disability insurance brokerage organizations, will be organizing its own second annual National DI Day campaign May 5.