Option 1:
Often you can find professional organizations that offer group disability policies for their members. If you're an accountant, for example, I know AICPA has a ridiculously cheap, high-quality disability policy. You'll have to read the fine print -- many of these group policies offer own-occupation coverage for 2-3 years and then stop, which isn't the best as bearkat mentioned.
Option 2:You can find "no-load" disability insurance providers, which allow you to find insurance policies for a flat fee instead of paying the advisor a variable commission. However, these are hard to find and might not be available in your state. (See:
http://www.accuterm.com/no-load.htm) You also have to know what you're doing a bit more as these providers can be a bit more hands off. Insurance policies can be tricky things with lots of little outs for the insurance company, so it's important to do your research if you are doing that.
Option 3:Otherwise, you can look into a company in your local area and find a broker.
To be honest, if you're feeling ambitious, you can look into all 3 options (group org policies, no/low load policies, broker) and compare. If you do, let us know the results!
How MuchWhen considering how much coverage you want, the general rule of thumb is at least 60% of income. Companies won't insure beyond about that much because for some, there's little incentive to keep working if you can take care of everything while living on the insurance company!
But since you probably save so much of your income, you might not need as much. Just make sure to have enough % of income that you can live comfortably with medical bills and still save for retirement. Most disability policies end at 65 and expect for Social Security/ Disability to take care of you at that point. So you want enough room in a policy to be able to save to take care of your future self beyond what you think Social Security will provide.
Remember to take into account that you'd be able to qualify for long term disability through Social Security as well. But once again, it's the total disability definition, so it wouldn't cover you if you could do any occupation, even if you are unable do your own.
ETA: Stuff about Social Security.