What is Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance (AD&D)?
What is Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance (AD&D)?
a policy that supplements your health or life insurance. AD&D does not take the place of term life insurance.
Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance Details
AD&D insurance is known as a rider policy or a policy that supplements your basic life or health insurance. AD&D covers the unintentional death or dismemberment of the policyholder. This insurance policy defines dismemberment as the loss or loss of use of body parts or functions such as limbs, speech, eyesight, and hearing.
Accidental death covers circumstances such as exposure to the elements, traffic accidents, homicide, falls, drowning, and accidents involving heavy equipment. Your individual policy will have information further detailing terms, percentages of the various benefits, and special circumstances. It will also specify that the death or accident must occur within a specific time frame or else the plan will not cover the event.
When it comes to AD&D insurance you need to remember that it does not take the place of actual life insurance. This is just a supplemental policy. If you have both AD&D and life insurance and an accidental death occurs, the beneficiaries will receive benefits from both policies. However, the benefits cannot exceed a certain amount. Because of this, most AD&D payments will be the same as the life insurance policy.
Example of Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance
There are many different ways to give examples of AD&D insurance. Here are just a couple of examples. If you get an AD&D policy and die in a car accident several months after getting the policy, your beneficiary will receive the benefits. If you get AD&D insurance and have an accident while surfing that results in you losing the use of your left hand then you should receive a percentage of the benefits. If you have AD&D and experience a car accident and have part of a leg amputated and end up being paralyzed from the waist down you should receive benefits.
Significance of Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance
Just to reiterate, AD&D insurance supplements a life or health insurance plan. It does not replace either of those. AD&D insurance can give you coverage that may not be in your basic life or health insurance plan.
AD&D insurance pays a percentage when the policyholder loses a limb, experiences partial or permanent paralysis, or loss of use of specific body parts. Each of these things and the injuries covered are specific to each insurance company and its policies. Most policies do not pay all of the policy amounts unless the policyholder experiences a combination of loss of a limb and loss of major bodily function.
You also need to be aware that AD&D will not cover some things. Just about all policies will not cover suicide, death from illness or natural causes, injuries from war, an overdose of toxic substances, death while under the influence of nonprescription drugs, a sporting event-related injury or death of a professional athlete, and if the loss occurs because of a felonious act that the policyholder takes part in.