While a majority of companies believe it's important to offer longterm disability insurance, critical gaps in policies for employees are common, according to The Employer Perspectives on Disability Benefits Study, jointly released this month by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. and The American College.

More than two-thirds (71 percent) of the benefits managers from 316 out of 3,000 of the largest U.S. companies said that group long-term disability insurance plays an “extremely or very important” role in their firm's overall benefits offering, the study showed. However, only 60 percent of employees' base salary on average is covered by their group long-term disability program.

Moreover, only 27 percent of respondents said that their programs included employee compensation from bonuses and commission income, which often leaves high-earning employees unprotected to a significant extent once they become disabled. “More and more employers are including bonus compensation as part of the overall pay package, and so this issue is becoming even more important,” says Tracy Shaw, an assistant vice president at MassMutual.