Who are the IncomeAssure people?

Great American Insurance Company is the underwriter here, and its industry ratings suggest that it is healthy. SterlingRisk, a large insurance brokerage firm, is the administrator.

What if my employer has announced layoffs or buyouts?

Another catch. If it’s a layoff, you probably won’t be able to buy coverage, though it’s worth trying if the cuts are in a division other than yours. The application asks, point-blank, if your employer has “announced or implemented a plan or program of job reduction, reduction in force, or departmental or company restructuring.”

If your employer is offering buyouts, then you’re a lot like me, since my employer announced them as I was writing this column. Here, again, you’re probably out of luck, though IncomeAssure may allow you to buy in again at a later date.

Don’t lie. IncomeAssure has seen bursts of applications from certain employers before, and its staff can usually figure out why in about 10 seconds of Internet searching. If you are the subject of an investigation during the claims process or afterward, and it turns out that your employer had announced layoffs right before you bought a policy, you’ve probably committed insurance fraud (and IncomeAssure definitely will not cut you a check).

Could you pull the wool over everyone’s eyes? Sure you could. But it’s a risk, and it ruins things for everyone else. “If we took enough hits on the chin from chief financial officers of small companies, we might rate them differently, but we haven’t,” David Ferron, product management director at Great American, said of the sorts of people who might have precise knowledge of an employer’s plans. “If you have enough bad experiences with people who slip through the net, you build a different net.”

What if there was a recent acquisition announcement?

Mergers and acquisitions often come with layoffs on both sides, but it may take months for that to happen. If your company goes up on the block, there’s a chance that six months may go by before a buyer emerges, the deal closes and the restructuring happens. IncomeAssure does not ban people who are in this situation.

What if I just got a bad review?

If you did, you’ve got an elevated chance of losing your job in the next round of layoffs, but IncomeAssure won’t ask about that.