Not necessarily advice for the person in question but for everyone else reading this:
If you have the ability via your employer or individually to purchase LTD, you should really do so.
If you have the ability via your employer or individually to purchase LTD, you should really do so.
Universal healthcare also works due to this assumption; everyone is paying into it, so the cost of the most expensive (the sick) is balanced by the cost of the least expensive (the healthy). As the former outpaces the latter, the premiums for everyone grow.
It's also why the ACA in the US mandated participation or a fine; to make it more affordable the healthy need to also be paying into it, but the healthiest also tend to be the youngest, and the least likely to buy insurance, whereas the older and sicker would all buy in (and now have to be covered), and that would make the premiums untenable (leading the moderately healthy to decide not to buy in, causing an even bigger issue, etc etc, until it doesn't make sense for anyone). And why prior to the ACA, you needed a physical, and pre-existing conditions generally led to you being excluded.
But, while the US has changed with regard to health insurance, it still is the case that if you want LTD as an individual, expect to have questions about your health, if not an actual physical, just like life insurance does, and to have it denied, or have insanely high premiums, if you are looking likely to need it.
For me in my company I pay less than $25/month, I know co-workers who opt out…I honestly don’t understand that logic.