Your income, protected
if you can’t work.
Income protection replaces a portion of your income — typically 50–65% — if illness or injury stops you working. Unlike critical illness, it doesn’t require a specific diagnosis; it just requires you to be unable to do your job.
The most overlooked protection
Most people think about life insurance, perhaps critical illness — and stop there. But the most common reason for losing income during your working life isn’t death or a defined critical illness. It’s ordinary illness or injury — back problems, mental health issues, recovery from accidents — that prevents you from working for months or sometimes years.
Statutory Sick Pay runs out after 28 weeks. After that, for most households, income protection is the only thing standing between you and serious financial stress.
And to address the elephant in the room: income protection is not the same as PPI, which got mis-sold and rightly criticised. This is a properly underwritten, individually advised product.
The four things that define your policy
How long after you stop working before the policy starts paying — typically 1, 4, 13, 26 or 52 weeks.
How long the policy keeps paying — either short-term (2 or 5 years) or long-term (until retirement).
‘Own occupation’ pays if you can’t do your specific job. ‘Any occupation’ only pays if you can’t do any work at all.
Whether the benefit increases with inflation over time. Important on long-term policies.
Where the small print really matters
- Two policies at similar prices can have wildly different occupation definitions
- We compare exclusions and waiting periods across 5+ major insurers
- Mental health conditions — most modern policies cover these equally
- Self-employed clients — we specialise in finding policies that work for variable income
- Employer sick pay checked against what you actually need to cover the gap
What it costs
Our advice is free at point of use. The insurer pays us a small commission when a policy goes live — disclosed upfront. You pay only the policy premium. Typically 50–65% of gross income covered.
Common questions
A recent client case
A self-employed client in their late 30s wanted long-term income protection with a 4-week waiting period. We compared occupation definitions and indexation features across five major insurers and recommended the policy with the most favourable own-occupation definition for their specific work.