Disability Insurance Doctors Can Actually Trust by the Numbers

Data through September 2026.

The short version

Since Money Meets Medicine Disability Insurance launched in March 2024, we have submitted 941 disability insurance applications for physicians. Four were denied — a denial rate of 0.4%. All four were attending physicians who did not have access to a Guaranteed Standard Issue (GSI) policy.

For comparison, Milliman's 2025 annual survey of the U.S. individual disability income market — covering twelve carriers representing more than 90% of new industry sales — found that in 2024, only 47% of applications were issued as applied. Thirty-four percent were rated, waivered, or modified, and 19% were declined. Individual carriers' decline rates ranged from 13% to 33%.

Note: those industry figures cover normal medical underwriting across all applicants and occupations, and exclude guaranteed-issue business entirely, while our number reflects a physician-only book shaped by the screening process described below — including the GSI routing that removes underwriting risk for residents. Treat the comparison as context, not a like-for-like benchmark. The lowest denial rate I've seen publicly mentioned in the physician disability insurance space is still 8% (20X our rate at Money Meets Medicine).

The process is the secret sauce to making our denial rate so low compared to everyone else.

No resident or fellow client of MMM DI has ever been denied disability insurance. Not one.

This page explains exactly how we count these numbers, and — more importantly — the process that produces them. Because the number isn't luck. It's a system, and it exists because of what happened to me.

The numbers on our first ~1,000 physician clients

All four denials were attending physicians without access to a GSI — situations where full medical underwriting cannot be avoided by anyone.

How we count

Numbers like these invite skepticism, so here is our methodology:

• Every formal application we submit to a carrier is included. Not just the easy ones, and not just the ones that became clients. A small number of applications in this data began in the months immediately before our formal March 2024 launch and are included for completeness.
• Applications still in underwriting are excluded from the denial rate, since their outcomes aren't known yet. Counting them as successes would flatter the number; we don't.
• A "denial" means a carrier formally declined the application. Exclusions and premium ratings are different (and less severe) outcomes; the process below is designed to avoid those too — and for residents on the GSI path, even an adverse underwriting decision does not cost them coverage, because the GSI remains available as a fallback.
• If we refer a physician elsewhere — for example, to the one agent who can write a GSI we don't have access to — that application isn't in our numbers, and that's the point: the goal is that no resident ends up denied, whether we earn a commission or not.

Why no resident has ever been denied: the GSI rule

The zero isn't a streak of good luck. It's the mechanical result of one rule we never break.

A Guaranteed Standard Issue policy is an individual own-occupation disability policy offered through specific residency and fellowship programs that requires no medical underwriting — approval is based on training status, not health history. Through GSI programs available at more than 180 residency and fellowship programs, plus a national GSI program that covers most remaining gaps, we can secure guaranteed-issue coverage for the overwhelming majority of residents and fellows in the country. Nearly half of all the policies we've ever placed — 453 of 941 — went through GSI programs.

Here's the part most residents, and frankly many agents, don't know. The carriers behind these GSI programs structure them with a fallback: if a resident applies for a fully underwritten policy with the same carrier that offers the GSI at their program and receives an adverse decision, they can still take the GSI. The adverse decision doesn't cost them coverage.

But if that resident applies with a different carrier and gets denied or modified, they generally become ineligible for the GSI. One application to the wrong company can permanently close the door. (If you're still deciding whether to buy at all, start here: should I get disability insurance in residency?)

So the rule at MMM DI: a resident applies only with the carrier that offers the GSI where they train. Best case, they get a fully underwritten policy on preferred terms. Worst case, they take the GSI. Either way, they end up insured. That is how the risk of a resident ending up uninsured goes to zero — not approximately zero. Zero.

Many agencies don't follow this rule for a simple reason: they don't have access to most GSI programs, and an agent can't earn a commission on a policy they can't sell. So the incentive is to run every resident through full underwriting across multiple carriers — which is precisely how residents with any medical history end up excluded, rated, or denied, and locked out of the GSI they never knew existed. And in the rare case where we can't be the writing agent on a GSI, we point the resident to the agent who can — because the resident getting the GSI matters more than whose name is on the policy.

Why I'm obsessive about this

Because it happened to me. As a resident, an insurance agent had me apply for a fully underwritten policy with a company that was not the carrier offering the GSI where I trained. The application went sideways, and it left me permanently uninsurable. I am a practicing anesthesiologist who cannot buy the own-occupation disability insurance I tell every trainee to get.

That's why a resident denial is treated as a never event at MMM DI — the same way medicine treats wrong-site surgery. Not "rare." Never. The GSI rule, the pre-application screening, and the willingness to refer out cases we can't protect all exist because I know exactly what's on the other side of getting this wrong.

How we keep the overall denial rate at 0.4%

Attendings usually don't have a GSI option, so the protection comes from process:

1. Thorough intake before anything is submitted. Full health history, medications, hobbies, prior insurance history — the things underwriters find anyway, surfaced up front. (This is also why full disclosure matters: the only denials in our history that surprised us involved history we didn't know about.)
2. Informal preliminary inquiries with underwriters. Before a formal application exists, we describe the case — no name attached — to carrier underwriters and ask how it would be treated. An informal "that would be declined" costs nothing and doesn't follow the physician. A formal denial follows them onto every future application.
3. Carrier matching. We work with all five carriers that offer true own-occupation coverage for physicians — and the same health history can get five different underwriting outcomes. We apply where the physician has the strongest offer waiting.

The contrast with a volume-driven agency is stark: collect basic info, spend fifteen minutes on the phone, submit, and let underwriting sort it out. That approach produces the industry's numbers. Ours produces ours.

Independence, and how we're paid

MMM DI is a truly independent agency. We are not employed by any carrier and receive no benefits from any carrier. Like every insurance agency in the United States, we are paid by commission when a policy is placed — there is no other compensation model in this industry, and anyone who implies otherwise is hiding the ball. Our incentive alignment comes from structure, not sainthood: because we can access GSI programs covering the overwhelming majority of trainees nationally, we don't face the conflict that pushes other agencies to steer residents away from GSIs they can't sell. (More on what to look for: how to choose a disability insurance agent as a physician.)

Two recent cases

The co-resident who was six weeks into the wrong application. A client of ours — a resident we'd previously secured a GSI for after asking them to pull a nearly-doomed application at another agency — learned their co-resident had been sitting in another carrier's underwriting for over six weeks, fielding escalating questions about a prior diagnosis. The problem: their program had a GSI available, and a denial with the wrong carrier would have made that GSI unreachable forever. The co-resident came to us, we reviewed the history, confirmed a denial or exclusion was nearly certain on the current path, and moved them to the GSI instead: no modifications, no exclusions, no denial. Insured.

The "medical occupation" policy that wasn't own-occupation. A resident came to us for a second opinion on a policy another agent had quoted — cheaper than the alternatives, which is how it was being sold. Reading the contract, the definition of disability was "medical occupation": benefits only if the physician couldn't perform any medical job. That is not own-occupation protection, and the agent quoting it was employed by the carrier selling it. We placed the resident in a true own-occupation policy for under $100 per month using a graded premium structure — low cost during training, with the ability to increase the benefit and convert to level premiums as an attending. Right protection, resident budget.

Questions and answers

What is MMM DI's disability insurance denial rate?

0.4% — 4 denials out of 941 applications submitted since our March 2024 launch through September 2026. All four were attending physicians without access to a GSI policy.

Has a resident ever been denied through MMM DI?

No. No resident or fellow client has ever been denied, because residents apply only with the carrier offering the GSI at their training program, which preserves the GSI as a guaranteed fallback. Here's how GSI coverage works for residents.

What is a GSI policy?

Guaranteed Standard Issue disability insurance is an individual own-occupation policy offered through specific residency and fellowship programs that requires no medical underwriting — approval is based on training status, not health history. It is not a group policy; it's a portable individual policy from a major carrier. (And it's not the same as your employer's group coverage, which is not enough on its own.)

Why does applying with the wrong carrier matter so much for residents?

Because GSI eligibility generally requires never having been declined or modified. An adverse decision from a carrier other than the GSI carrier at your program makes you ineligible for the GSI. An adverse decision from the same carrier does not — the GSI fallback remains available.

What happens if MMM DI can't write the GSI at my program?

We point you to the agent who can, and you get the GSI anyway. Avoiding an adverse decision on your record matters more than our commission.

How often are physicians denied disability insurance elsewhere?

More often than most physicians realize. Milliman's 2025 survey of the individual disability income market found that of applications underwritten in 2024, 19% were declined outright and another 34% were rated, waivered, or modified — meaning barely under half were issued exactly as applied. Decline rates varied widely by carrier, from 13% to 33%, which is why where you apply matters as much as whether you qualify.

Where to go next

If you're ready to protect your income, request a quote from Money Meets Medicine Disability Insurance. If you'd rather read first:

• The physician's guide to disability insurance — what the coverage does and how to buy it well
• GSI disability insurance for residents and fellows — the guaranteed-issue path, explained
• Should I get disability insurance in residency?
• The three riders that matter most
• Why group disability insurance isn't enough
• Common misconceptions about physician disability insurance
• The Money Meets Medicine podcast

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MMM DI works with all five carriers that offer true own-occupation disability insurance for physicians, and receives commissions from carriers when policies are placed. Historical results are provided for transparency and describe past underwriting outcomes for MMM DI clients; they are not a guarantee of any individual applicant's outcome.