Not to digress from this discussion, but this is illustrative of what I believe is gonna come at us wrt health care insurance in our next contract. Note that you said since the (disability) insurance in this case is provided by DAL, but the benefits become taxable, and then are therefore payable by the recipient. If the company doesn't slough us off onto King Putt's exchanges, someone will have a tax bill to account for. My guess is that since the Supreme court ruled the fines for NOT having ACA insurance are "taxes", that this will also apply in some manner with corporate sponsored/supplied insurance, ergo the tax ramifications. I know I have been banging this drum for some time now, but I really hope that people are paying attention. I might be all wet on this, but I'd rather be prepared for this than to be blindsided if it comes.

 

Just wondering if AA's union provide any LTD programs through a third party vendor for the pilots?

 

Interesting. Thank you.

Is there anyway we can supplement ours? I remember the SWA FO I was talking to said that he took home 10K a month on disability. WOW, thats more than Captain's pay after taxes.

TEN

 

Would be really interested to compare the LCCs to this.....

 

I know that ALPA offers a supplemental disability insurance that we can buy. Not sure about the cost or whether Delta also offers something similar.

 

I have heard that some airlines LTD will reduce benefits when supplemented with something like ALPAs .. so it's a net zero gain. . . not completely sure about this.

 

I recently came across this:

https://app.piu.org/piu7/Pilot

 

One of our pilots out on disability himself for several years now worked with Lloyd's of London to design a supplemental policy for UPS pilots. They introduced it last year and I heard it was very successful. (I enrolled.) He told me they were going to introduce a similar policy for some of the majors, which looks like happened on January 1st. Ours (UPS) is a flat amount for either CPT or F/O since our payscales are fairly simple. This is how he explained the other airline's design. There are many variables due to the different payscales and equipment at the various airlines and the different disability policies but what it does is get you up to 75% of your previous guarantee. The premiums are based on age and selected benefit payout. I checked out the link and did some basic research with the sliding scale calculator:

https://app.piu.org/piu7/Pilot

An American pilot, 45 years old, with an income of $250,000 can get a benefit of up to $7625 per month supplemental income for a premium of $215 per month. Because American's LTD is 60% but capped at $8000 per month, this policy augments that to get you up to 75% with NO cap.

A Delta pilot, 45 years old, with an income of $250,000 can get a benefit of up to $5208 per month for a premium of $155 per month. Delta's LTD policy is 50% but no cap. Again this policy gets you up to 75% of previous income.

United numbers work out the same as American since they are also capped at $8000 per month. Although their percentage is only 50%.

Of course that cap only affects the higher income guys

For us UPS guys, this was a no brainer.

 

In United's newest contract, the LTD plan is contributory, but can be opted out of.

The company pays the majority of the premium, but the pilot pays enough to make the full benefit federally tax free.

The United plan pays until normal retirement age, with some earnings limits.

An individual pilot can buy in to the ALPA plan, and that would also be tax free. The ALPA plan has a 5 year payment limit. The ALPA plan is age rated, so the payment goes up quite a bit at age 55, and drastically at age 60.

Joe