A company may insure an employee with specialized skills under a key employee disability insurance...

The correct answer is A. The business is the applicant. In key employee disability insurance (also called key person disability income), the purpose of coverage is to protect the business against financial loss if an employee with unique skills, knowledge, or production value becomes disabled. New York’s Life, Accident and Health Agent/Broker examination content outline specifically includes “Business disability insurance” and “Key person disability income” as tested topics, confirming that this is a recognized business-use disability coverage concept in the New York licensing curriculum.

Under this arrangement, the business applies for and owns the policy , pays the premiums, and is generally the beneficiary of any benefits payable because the loss being insured is the company’s loss, not the employee’s family loss. Industry explanations of key person disability insurance are consistent on this point: the key employee is the insured , while the company buys the coverage and makes the premium payments .

That makes the other options incorrect. The employee’s spouse is not the beneficiary, the employee usually does not pay the premium, and the employee is not the applicant.