Cover Your Assets Podcast with Billy Gwaltney
Jul 8, 2026 · 6 min · 3 segments
In this episode of Cover Your Assets, disability insurance specialist Billy Gwaltney addresses whether physicians should prioritize paying down debt or increasing private disability coverage. He…
Billy GwaltneyHost
Today's episode, I'm going to answer the question, Should I pay down debt or increase my private disability coverage? I've gotten this question a number of times, sometimes from people in training, other times when they're thinking about buying insurance at all, other times from new attendings who really want to pay down a lot of debt as soon as possible because they're finally making an attending income, and they really would like to put off increasing their disability coverage.
I admire what you ladies and gentlemen have to go through to get where you are.
And then for the privilege, when you come out of training and start making a decent living, hopefully to then have to pay down a lot of debt that got you there.
I do have some words of caution, and that is whether you're thinking about it as a trainee or an attending, Not getting insurance, the issues with that, either not buying it or not having enough, is that if the bad day shows up, your plan B has to be in place prior to that day occurring.
So plan A is to have a long, productive career, pay down the debt and save money and never need insurance.
But plan B needs to be the best insurance on the planet so that if you did become disabled, you can still pay down the debt and you can still live in the house you live in.
And hopefully your children can go to the school you want them to go to and your dreams don't all fail.
And if you don't have insurance, those dreams are likely going to disintegrate.
Like relying on an employer policy, some new attendings think that, oh, I'm going to work at this employer where they say they're going to pay me $15,000 or $20,000 a month in my group disability.
Our clients on claim, over half of them never see a nickel from their employer policy just because the definitions are so bad.
Even if they call it own occupation, they define that very differently than how this private specialty coverage defines it.
I've got plenty of podcasts and happy to discuss in as much detail about the difference in the definitions and private coverage versus group or employer coverage.
But staying to the point about should you increase versus paying down debt? I would say that to the extent you want to have insurance in place to be able to maintain your way of life and hopefully also pay down debt, whether it's through a student loan repayment rider or whether it's through just having enough disability coverage to still pay down the debt and save for retirement and so forth, then yes, you need to buy it and not put it off.
Because if you put it off and the illness or injury shows up and you can't do your specialty, then you're toast if you don't have enough insurance.
Today's episode, I'm going to answer the question, Should I pay down debt or increase my private disability coverage? I've gotten this question a number of times, sometimes from people in training, other times when they're thinking about buying insurance at all, other times from new attendings who really want to pay down a lot of debt as soon as possible because they're finally making an attending income, and they really would like to put off increasing their disability coverage.
I admire what you ladies and gentlemen have to go through to get where you are.
And then for the privilege, when you come out of training and start making a decent living, hopefully to then have to pay down a lot of debt that got you there.
I do have some words of caution, and that is whether you're thinking about it as a trainee or an attending, Not getting insurance, the issues with that, either not buying it or not having enough, is that if the bad day shows up, your plan B has to be in place prior to that day occurring.
So plan A is to have a long, productive career, pay down the debt and save money and never need insurance.
But plan B needs to be the best insurance on the planet so that if you did become disabled, you can still pay down the debt and you can still live in the house you live in.
And hopefully your children can go to the school you want them to go to and your dreams don't all fail.
And if you don't have insurance, those dreams are likely going to disintegrate.
Like relying on an employer policy, some new attendings think that, oh, I'm going to work at this employer where they say they're going to pay me $15,000 or $20,000 a month in my group disability.
Our clients on claim, over half of them never see a nickel from their employer policy just because the definitions are so bad.
Even if they call it own occupation, they define that very differently than how this private specialty coverage defines it.
I've got plenty of podcasts and happy to discuss in as much detail about the difference in the definitions and private coverage versus group or employer coverage.
But staying to the point about should you increase versus paying down debt? I would say that to the extent you want to have insurance in place to be able to maintain your way of life and hopefully also pay down debt, whether it's through a student loan repayment rider or whether it's through just having enough disability coverage to still pay down the debt and save for retirement and so forth, then yes, you need to buy it and not put it off.
Because if you put it off and the illness or injury shows up and you can't do your specialty, then you're toast if you don't have enough insurance.
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