Income Protection Calculator

Income protection insurance replaces some of your income if illness or injury stops you working. Most policies pay 55-65% of gross income (the tax authority caps tax-advantaged payouts). The coverage need depends on essential expenses, partner income, emergency fund, and any existing sick pay or cover. This calculator sizes the gap after accounting for all these offsets.

5,000/month income against 3,500/month essential expenses (mortgage, food, bills). Partner earns 1,500/month. Income shortfall if you stop: 3,500 - 1,500 = 2,000/month. With no existing coverage, target cover is the lesser of 70% of income (3,500) or the shortfall (2,000) = 2,000/month cover plus 3-month emergency fund of 10,500.

Premium rises with age, health, occupation class, and waiting period. A 35-year-old non-smoker office worker pays 30-60/month for 2,000/month cover with 4-week waiting. A 55-year-old in manual occupation pays 3-5x more. Long-deferred policies (6-12 months) cost (commonly cited at 50-70%) less than short-deferred (4 weeks) - use the emergency fund to cover the gap.

A worked example

Try the defaults: your monthly income of 5,000, monthly essential expenses of 3,500, partner income monthly of 1,500, emergency fund of 3 months. The tool returns 2,000.00. You can adjust any input and the result updates as you type — no submit button, no reload. That's the real power here: seeing how sensitive the output is to one or two assumptions.

What moves the number most

The result responds to Your Monthly Income, Monthly Essential Expenses, Partner Income Monthly, Emergency Fund (months), and Existing Monthly Cover. Not every input has equal weight. Adjusting one input at a time toward extreme values shows which ones move the result most.

The formula behind this

Gap = essential expenses - partner income - existing cover. Target cover = min(70% of income, gap). Emergency fund = essentials × months. Everything the calculator does is shown in the formula box below, so you can check the math against your own spreadsheet if you want.

Using this as a check-in

Re-run this every three months. A single reading tells you where you stand; four readings tell you whether things are improving. The trend matters more than any individual snapshot.

What this doesn't capture

The score is a composite of the inputs you provide. Life context — job security, family obligations, health, housing — doesn't appear in the math but shapes the real picture. Use the number as a prompt, not a verdict.