Disability Insurance for MDs (DI4MDs)

DI4MDs started nearly 50 years ago with a young man and a dream.

Andy loved 2 things: surfing and San Diego. He knew he wanted to live in San Diego and keep

surfing at Sunset Cliffs and Black’s and that he needed a job that would allow him to make this happen.

So, when he graduated from college, he started selling insurance.

After spending a decade working for one insurance company,

Andy realized one insurance company couldn’t possibly have perfect policies for all his clients’ unique needs.

With this knowledge, Andy set out on his own, so he would be able to truly prioritize his clients’ needs and make sure they each got the best protection and policy from their ideal insurance provider.

young, male doctor stands in hall with arms folded

After a few years, Andy started noticing a pattern. His favorite clients were always his physicians.

They were smart, hardworking, and true experts in their fields. These were the same attributes he was cultivating in his own career in insurance. Years passed and as he spent more time with his physician clients, they kept referring their friends and colleagues to Andy. Soon, his clients were training new doctors themselves, and rather than just referring Andy, they started inviting him to join department meetings to teach their residents and fellows about disability insurance, and to share why this income protection was so important for their financial futures. This is a rare testament to the relationships Andy built and to the trust he gained with his long-term clients as a truly impartial advisor who has their best financial interests at heart.

San Diego is a military town with a significant population of military physicians and dentists. We set out to learn all we could about this unique and underserved physician population and have become recognized experts in serving the folks who serve our country.

As Andy’s clients matured in their careers and lives, he built his practice around their needs.

Andy began offering life insurance as clients started and raised their families. Not content to simply offer life insurance, Andy became an expert, earning the designation of chartered life underwriter. With more clients and more products, Andy needed help! He began to build a small team to serve his growing client population. DK Unger joined the team in 2014, eager to apply his analytical background to evaluate disability insurance policies. DK started his career building small business pension plans and optimizing them for cost savings and efficiency. DK realized too many people weren’t aware of objectively better solutions to protect their hard-earned money while they were still working, like individual disability and life insurance policies.

At the same time Andy and his team continued to deepen their long-standing relationships with many San Diego graduate medical education programs. The insurance companies started to take notice. One of the country’s premier insurers set up a guaranteed standard issue policy (GSI) that Andy and his team can offer medical trainees. A GSI disability insurance policy is a special type of income protection that is pre-approved. This means eligible physicians can obtain comprehensive disability protection without invasive medical questions or exams (underwriting). This differs from traditional disability policies that require extensive medical underwriting, lengthy health questionnaires, or prescription checks. GSI policies are available exclusively to residents and fellows at select medical training institutions.

Today, DI4MDs still offers this policy to residents and fellows training at University of California San Diego (UCSD), Scripps Health, Rady Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), and Southwest Healthcare Medical Education Consortium. This policy is exclusive to the team at DI4MDs—we are the only folks who offer this bespoke protection to physicians launching their careers at these institutions. We also leverage our significant expertise across the nation for physicians at all stages of their careers. We’re licensed in all 50 states and work with all of the major insurance companies so that we can provide the best coverage for each of our clients in their unique personal and financial journey.

After years consulting with DI4MDs while growing her career as a customer experience executive, Andy’s daughter Jenna earned her insurance license and joined the family business full time in 2024. She brings her dedication to customers and customer advocacy to her work and always puts our clients first.

We pride ourselves on being a family business, not a platform. Our clients choose to work with us for our expertise and commitment. We’ve cultivated long-standing relationships with the insurance companies to get our clients a fair hearing and the best outcomes through the underwriting process. In insurance, buyers pay the exact same amount for their policy regardless of who they work with or where they get their coverage. We don’t charge anything for our expertise or deep relationships, or the claim assistance we provide. We build long-standing relationships as trusted advisors, over 95% of our clients maintain their policies and navigate any future disability insurance needs with us over the course of their careers.

Physicians are our specialty.

Disability Insurance custom-designed for physicians, by specialists with decades of experience advising medical professionals.