Putting a price tag on your insurance policy

Crawford tells clients that disability insurance premiums will typically cost between 1 percent and 3 percent of annual income. Prices will vary according to several main factors, including your age, gender, health history and occupation.

Another factor affecting your premiums is the policy's elimination period. That's a specified length of time -- people usually choose 90 days -- from the onset date of disability. When that time is up, the company starts paying your benefits. You can choose an elimination period as short as 30 days or as long as 720 days. Generally, the longer your elimination period is, the cheaper your premium.

You'll also have to choose a benefit period, or the length of time the insurer will pay you benefits. Most companies let you choose between benefits lasting two years, five years, all the way to age 65, to age 67, or for the rest of your life. Most people choose the age-65 option, as Social Security kicks in thereafter. The longer your benefit period, the more expensive your policy will be.

When they price your policy, each insurer categorizes you according to its own set of occupation classes, ranking systems that sort different jobs according to their likelihood of filing a claim. The more likely your occupation is to result in disability, the more expensive your coverage will be.

And if you work at a job that requires intense manual labor, like construction work, it's likely you'll be unable to get coverage at one of the big disability insurers, Crawford said.

"You'll have to go to a smaller insurer. They won't make you necessarily pay more for coverage, but you'll get a stripped-down contract, without any bells and whistles," he said.