Our experience with AIDS has taught all of us: protect against disability. Without HIV in the equation, 57% of people 25 will experience at least a 90-day disability by age 65. The same is true for 50% of 30-year-olds, 44% of people in their 40s, and even 29% of people in their 50s.

Put HIV and breast cancer back into the equation and you have our financial Achilles heel. The picture is made worse with our higher debt levels and with our dependence on two-incomes for financial stability. Moreover, the miracles of modern science ensure that we'll be alive after a medical incident - and broke.

This is insurance you must take out before the barn is burning. Because of HIV, private insurers have written in clauses that permit them to deny claims if application answers were made "with intent to defraud." Moreover, many disability companies only screen at the time of a claim, not at the time of the sale. If you have had a lab test it's easy for companies to query the national labs; if you have medical records indicating a non-insurable condition, private coverage is unlikely.

The basic route to secure disability coverage is through job benefits. Remember, short-term disability cover is a State requirement that pays a maximum of $170 a week for only 6 months; this is not what we're talking about. If you have a non-insurable condition, the tail must wag the dog - i.e., benefits can become more important than salary or satisfaction.

Research pays off here. Seek group coverage with short qualification periods once you're hired, short waiting periods once you go out, tax free benefits because you paid the premium, benefits at the 60-70% level, inclusion of commissions & bonuses, or portability enabling you to convert coverage if you quit.

If you have a medical condition that impacts your work, it's important to not let your disease make the decision as to take disability benefits or not. One key pitfall is working till you drop instead of using these benefits early in the game to fight the illness. I have helped people with HIV win disability benefits with t-cell counts of 500-700. And none of these have come back saying "I went out too early."

The time we need money like this is when we can enjoy it. True, with HIV life insurance becomes saleable but the prices offered only make sense when the illness have become very serious. Still, if disability insurance is unavailable to someone with HIV or cancer, the sale of life insurance can provide massive doses of income.

With any medical condition, taking disability benefits is often preferable to seeing job performance fall - and being fired. Illness is part of life; what's tragic is not equipping ourselves with the income tools with which to deal with it.

Be aware that many doctors believe the death-camp slogan, "in work there is freedom". Many of us fear disability is like stepping off a cliff into a void. Yet I have seen people instead create entirely new, creative life stages where they can recoup and redirect their lives - instead of clinging onto relics of the past. When I counsel taking these benefits I send people for career counseling. Because income is no longer connected to work at this time, the urge to create and lead a meaningful life can flourish as it never could in a paid job.

On the average, disability is 7 times more likely than death for people 25, 5 times more likely for someone 35, 3 times more likely in the mid 40s. For us, an episode of disabling illness is even more probable due to HIV, cancer, addiction, and the higher risks we tend to run. Given this, why leave our income flanks unprotected?

All too often we realize we're all alone, even in relationship, when it comes to finance. But having safety nets like tax-free disability income can make the difference between transition and a spiraling down into severe debt.

Illness need not create a financial hangover when the party's over.