Benefit Amounts

• Policy owners can reduce their disability premiums by lowering their benefit payments. According to the law firm McClaren & Associates, disability plans can replace up to 80 percent of the insured's pre-disability salary. Policy owners who take less in benefits, for example 50 percent of their pre-disability salaries until they return to work, can reduce their premium payments.
  
  

Benefit Periods

• Short-term disability (STD) plans generally have benefit periods lasting several weeks up to two years, while benefits from long-term disability (LTD) plans can last for 24 months up to the rest of a person's life. Policy owners can reduce their insurance premiums by decreasing their plans’ benefit periods, which decreases the amounts paid out by insurers.
  
  

Elimination Periods

• An elimination period, or waiting period, is the time from the onset of disabilities to when benefit payments are scheduled to be distributed. These periods ensure that injuries and illnesses are severe enough to warrant disability payments. STD plans have elimination periods lasting for several weeks that can be waived for obvious disabilities such as broken bones and pregnancies. LTD elimination periods can last for up to six months. Policy owners who lengthen their elimination periods can pay less in insurance premiums.
  
  

Policy Features

• Another way for disability insurance policy owners to reduce their premium payments is to eliminate any additional features and options they don’t need. There are several options available, such as a Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA), which increases benefits in proportion with the Consumer Price Index to protect the policy owners’ purchasing power against inflation. Another option is the future purchase option, which allows policy owners to purchase additional benefits when their incomes increase without providing proof of insurability. These options are important but if policy owners can eliminate them, they will pay less in disability premiums.