Special Service members have two disability benefit options.
Ordinary Disability Benefits
Ordinary disability means you have a permanent disability, resulting in mental or physical incapacity, that prevents you from performing the assigned duties of your job. An ordinary disability comes from an injury or illness that did not occur on the job.
Annual Ordinary Disability Benefits are determined as one of the following, whichever is greater:
- 50% of your highest three-year average salary.
- The amount of retirement benefits you had earned at the time of your disability, without reduction for retiring before normal retirement age.
In-Service Disability Benefits
An In-Service disability means a total and permanent incapacity resulting from an on-the-job injury, disease or exposure that occurred at a specific time and place and prevents you from performing your job.
The law provides a presumption that certain medical conditions were contracted while you were on active duty, unless there is credible evidence to the contrary. The presumption includes heart, lung, respiratory tract diseases, and certain types of cancer and infectious diseases. The heart and lung presumptions do not apply if you did not become an IPERS member until July 1, 2000, or later and the medical condition existed when membership started.
Cancer
- Prostate cancer, primary brain cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, uterine cancer, malignant melanoma, leukemia, non-Hodgkinβs
lymphoma, bladder cancer, colorectal cancer, multiple myeloma, testicular cancer and kidney cancer
Infectious Disease
- Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), all strains of hepatitis, meningococcal meningitis and mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Annual In-Service Disability Benefits equal one of the following, whichever is greater:
- 60% of your highest three-year average salary.
- The amount of the retirement benefit you earned at the time of your disability, without reduction for retiring before normal retirement age.