How much disability insurance does an OB/GYN need?

Enough to replace the income the household actually spends, bought as an individual own occupation policy and sized toward the ceiling carriers will issue. Aim for total coverage of 60 to 70 percent of your income. Disability insurance typically replaces up to 60 to 70 percent of pre disability income at issue, per Medical Economics, so that band is both the target and the practical ceiling. Work it at the specialty anchors. Average compensation is $390,000 in the Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2026. At $390,000, 60 percent is $390,000 times 0.60, which is $234,000 a year, and $234,000 divided by 12 is $19,500 a month. At 70 percent, $390,000 times 0.70 is $273,000 a year, and $273,000 divided by 12 is $22,750 a month. Average total compensation is $420,859 in the Doximity Physician Compensation Report 2026. On that figure, 60 percent is $252,515 a year, about $21,043 a month, and 70 percent is $294,601 a year, about $24,550 a month. The group policy counts toward the total and rarely gets halfway there. The individual policy supplies the rest.

Part of the OB/GYN hub.

Why the number runs high in this specialty

Disability sizing starts from what the job physically is. OB/GYN is surgery, deliveries, and call, performed standing, at speed, at all hours: cesarean sections, operative deliveries, laparoscopic work, lifting and repositioning patients, and fine motor control under pressure in rooms where two patients are at stake at once. The events that end it are correspondingly plain. A hand or wrist injury takes fine motor control. A back injury takes standing, lifting, and long cases. A shoulder injury takes operative work. Each of those can end obstetric and surgical work while leaving the physician able to work at something else entirely, and the gap between something else and OB/GYN pay is the exposure being insured.

That shape dictates the policy terms as much as the amount. The definition must be true own occupation, so the benefit pays when you cannot practice OB/GYN, even if you could earn money teaching, reviewing charts, or working a desk. The benefit period should run to retirement age, because a mid career injury leaves decades to fund. The elimination period is sized against your reserve: the household with six months of expenses saved can carry the longer wait. And the partial or residual benefit is not optional decoration. The realistic claim in this specialty is the physician who can still work but cannot work whole: deliveries surrendered, surgery handed off, call reduced, a third of the income gone with the career intact. A policy without a residual benefit pays nothing for a common loss. The framework behind the definition lives on the own occupation disability page.

Sizing across the three stages

In residency, size to the future, not to the training income. A policy placed in training is underwritten on a young, healthy physician, priced at resident scale, and bought small, then carried upward by a future increase option that lets the benefit grow to attending size without a new medical exam. What matters is that the contract, the definition, and the increase option exist before practice adds anything to the record.

As a new attending, size to the contract you just signed. Run the band on your actual income. Heidi, a first year attending in this hub's case file, earns about $320,000. On that income, 60 percent is $192,000 a year, $16,000 a month, and 70 percent is $224,000 a year, about $18,667 a month. She carries group coverage only, so the distance between the group benefit and that band is hers to buy, and coverage sits at step four of the waterfall, after the first month of reserves and with credit cards at zero. That placement means the policy is bought in the first attending year, not deferred until the loans feel finished.

Lisa, the established case in this hub, earns about $370,000 eight years out, in a household of about $550,000, and holds individual own occupation cover in force. Her check is the same arithmetic: 60 percent of $370,000 is $222,000 a year, $18,500 a month, and 70 percent is $259,000 a year, about $21,583 a month. Add the group benefit and the individual benefit, divide by current income, and confirm the total still lands inside the 60 to 70 percent band.

The group policy, counted honestly

Most OB/GYNs hold whatever the employer or group provides, and it should be counted, at its real value. Group long term disability typically replaces a percentage of base pay up to a monthly cap, and the cap is where the arithmetic breaks. A plan capped at $10,000 a month pays $120,000 a year. Divided by average compensation of $390,000, $120,000 is about 31 percent of income, about half of the 60 percent floor of the target band. And the coverage ends when the employment ends, which in a specialty of group contracts, hospital deals, and model changes is not a remote clause.

Count the group layer as the floor of the stack, then buy the individual policy to carry the household the remaining distance to the target, with the benefit structured to be received tax free where the premiums are paid with after tax dollars. The whole stack, disability first, sits inside the protection stack framework.

Follow up questions

Does a laborist need a different amount?

No. The amount follows the income and the household spending, not the shift pattern. A laborist posting at Vanderbilt University Medical Center offered a $370,000 base salary for fourteen 12 hour shifts a month with no call, as a posting. On $370,000, the band is the same arithmetic as Lisa's above: $18,500 to about $21,583 a month.

What if I can still work, just not at full volume?

That is the residual or partial benefit doing its job, and it is a common claim shape in this specialty: obstetrics surrendered, surgery reduced, call cut back, income down by a third with the job intact. Confirm the policy pays a proportionate benefit for a partial loss of income, and confirm the threshold and the recovery terms in the contract itself. A policy that pays only on total disability leaves the common case uninsured.

Related questions

• Does an OB/GYN need own occupation disability insurance?
• How much term life insurance does an OB/GYN need?
• What disability insurance should an OB/GYN resident buy?

Sources

• Medical Economics, which establishes that disability carriers issue coverage totaling about 60 to 70 percent of pre disability income at issue, accessed October 2026.
• Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2026, which establishes average OB/GYN compensation of $390,000, accessed October 2026.
• Doximity Physician Compensation Report 2026, which establishes average total compensation of $420,859, accessed October 2026.
• Financial Fellowship Heidi and Spencer case and Lisa and Mark case, which establish the two household incomes and coverage positions used as examples, accessed October 2026.

Takeaways

• The target is total coverage of 60 to 70 percent of income: on $390,000, 60 percent is $234,000 a year, $19,500 a month, and 70 percent is $273,000 a year, $22,750 a month.
• Size by stage: buy the contract and the increase option in residency, size to the signed contract as a new attending, and recheck the band as income and household spending grow.
• A group plan capped at $10,000 a month replaces only about 31 percent of a $390,000 income, ends with the job, and is the floor of the stack, never the stack.
• The terms carry the amount: true own occupation, a benefit period to retirement age, and a residual benefit for the partial loss that is this specialty's common claim.