Disability Insurance:
As future surgeons, our insurance needs are a little different than non-procedural specialties. Our hands and bodies are what pay us, and if something happens to then, with a normal disability policy they can turn around and go "Well you can work in XYZ instead so we arent going to pay you." Not ideal. No one wants to go back and do family medicine
For us specifically, it's important to get "own occupation" disability insurance. This goes by a couple different names, also called own-occ, own specialty, pure-own occ. These mean that if you are not able to do your specific skill set at your high level, eg. can't perform hernia repairs or bowel resections, laceration repair, etc, but can still do more basic procedural work like wound care, consult assessment, etc, you still get the full pay out to cover the lost compensation of your full scope. "true own-occupation" is typically the most comprehensive, but reading the language of the policies and asking questions of the individual companies is important.
This is different from more generalized coverage that will not cover you for the gap in income potential if you are still able to cover less skilled jobs like wound care etc, and will refuse to pay to make up the difference.
Insurance is something that getting it while you are young and healthy is very important, bc the cost goes up with age, and unfortunately is usually more expensive for females than males. But, if you get disability insurance via a provider like this, you can start with much lower benefit (and therefore cost to you monthly or yearly) and then when your income goes up once you are an attending you can increase your coverage to what you want (and what you can afford with your shiny attending salary) without having to be reassessed with more medical questionnaires, physicals, blood tests, etc (called "under-writing). (See "Additional purchase benefit rider" below) In theory, you are the healthiest now than you ever will be, so get it while it's cheapest, it only goes up from here, and you can start small.
Many policies will also come with a "level' vs "graded" payment structure. "Level" means you are paying that same price, year after year, for the same coverage, no increase over time unless you change the policy. "Graded" may start at a lower, or significantly lower annual price, but the price increases over time as you get older. Depending on when you sign up and what age you plan to retire (and therefore no longer need the disability insurance) it may be worth sticking to graded, or switching to level, if you decide not to start with level to begin with.
The provider of the policy also makes a big difference. Insurance providers that I know of come in 2 types: stock-owner, and mutual
Stock owned are publically traded companies. Eg principal, standard, ameritas. They have stock holders and if they have profits, they go to the stock holders. What they do is going to improve their bottom line and make their stock holders happy.
Mutual companies: eg. guardian, northwestern mutual, mass mutual. The "owners" are the policy holders (AKA you and me). so the company is partnered with you so everyone doing well is the priority. This may come with benefits like dividends they can share if the company is doing well, which can increase your premium over time, but this is variable.
When you are looking at insurance companies, you can also look at how that company ranks financially via sites like "moody's" or S&P" they show the strength of the company and if they fall on hard times, weaker companies may increase rates faster, or even risk closing (unlikely but possible) than the better rated companies.
Something else to look at is how often or how much the company pays out claims. Company that isn't paying very much in claims overall may indicate that you will have a harder time getting things approved toget the money when you need it.
You also need to look at how long you have to be disabled before you start getting paid. Some companies have a waiting period of 90 days, but they can go up to 6 months or more. You have to make sure you have enough in emergency funds to cover the difference to keep the lights on if the worst case happens.
In any policy you should get the "rider" (think modifier like a billing code for us) that changes the policy by situation. The "indexed income benefit", also know as inflation benefit, cost of living adjustment rider (COLA), means that the pay out takes into consideration the increased cost of living, your policy will tell you what percentage annual inflation they cover,
This is important because if you are disabled at 30, you go on disability and maybe you chose to get a 4K/month benefit to cover expenses. but in 10 years, maybe that 4K doesnt cover everything anymore bc everything is more expensive (inflation) the COLA means that the amount you get paid out goes up by whatever that percentage is so your pay out matches how the price of everything goes up.
"Additional purchase benefit", that's what we were talking about up top, this is the adjustment that ALLOWS you to increase your coverage without going through the health screening again. SOME policies may make you do the underwriting again, so check with your policy before you sign up.
Life Insurance
Life insurance comes in "term" and "Whole life", as young ppl, whole life really isn't valuable to us, and can lock you into an expensive policy you don't need right away. it's not unusual to start with term, and later in life switch to whole life depending on needs.
Nothing wrong with starting with your employer life insurance, but like the disability, once you graduate you leave the policy behind with your job and have to find a new provider and policy and go through all the underwriting and the increased costs of older age and health conditions that you didn't have when you started residency.
Typically recommended to avoid the "accidental death and dismemberment" in the benefits section of employer bc this doesnt cover things like cancer, illness, or accidents CAUSED by you (AKA you crash your car and found at fault). These are much harder to get paid out than the basic life insurance.