Income protection
How much does income protection cost in the UK?
The short answer
There is no single honest figure: premiums depend on your age, occupation class, health, smoking status, the monthly benefit, the deferred period, the benefit period and whether premiums are guaranteed or reviewable. Any “average premium” without a named source and date cannot predict your quote. Fix a specification, then compare written like-for-like quotes.
Written by Parvoz Haydarov. Reviewed by Ilana Eldad.
Published . Last reviewed . Next review due .
What to know about how much income protection costs
- Premiums depend on age, occupation, health, the benefit, deferred period and premium type. Read more
- Occupation matters unusually heavily, since insurers grade jobs by how likely they are to cause absence. Read more
- A longer deferred period removes short absences from the insurer’s risk and lowers the price. Read more
- Any circulated average premium without a named source and date cannot predict an individual quote. Read more
Thinking about how much income protection costs
What works well
- A fixed specification makes quotes genuinely comparable.
- A longer deferred period cuts the premium substantially.
- Guaranteed premiums remove future repricing risk.
What to watch
- Averages without sources cannot predict an individual quote.
- A cheaper quote usually means a stricter incapacity definition.
- Reviewable premiums can rise sharply at review dates.
Why the honest answer is a method, not a number
Every circulated “average premium” hides a different mix of ages, occupations and benefit levels, so it cannot predict your quote. Income protection pricing is unusually sensitive to occupation — insurers grade jobs by how likely they are to cause absence — and to the deferred period, because a longer wait removes every short absence from the insurer’s risk. The disciplined approach is to fix the specification first: monthly benefit, deferred period matched to your sick pay, benefit period to your planned retirement age, guaranteed premiums. Then collect written quotes against that identical specification and compare them line by line. What the structure tells you without any figures: premiums rise with age because absence risk does; smoking and hazardous pastimes load the price; and a four-week deferred period can cost meaningfully more than a thirteen-week one for identical benefit. No insurer or trade body publishes a comparable market-wide table of income protection premiums by age band, so none is quoted here.
Write down your exact specification, request quotes against it in writing, and keep each insurer’s document with its date — a quote without a date is not comparable. Whatever the specifics of how much income protection costs, the discipline that protects you is always the same: get the insurer’s position in writing, keep the documents with the policy, and make sure the people who would help you claim know the policy exists and where the paperwork lives.
What moves the price
Income protection premiums are set from your age, your occupation — insurers grade jobs by how likely they are to cause absence — your answers on health, lifestyle and smoking, the monthly benefit, the deferred period, the benefit period and the premium type. Guaranteed premiums stay fixed for the term; reviewable premiums can be re-priced by the insurer at set intervals; age-banded premiums rise on a published schedule. A longer deferred period cuts the premium substantially because the insurer never pays for shorter absences. Average premium figures circulate widely online, but an average built from different ages, occupations and benefit levels cannot predict your quote — treat any average without a named source and a date as unusable. No insurer or trade body publishes a comparable market-wide average income protection premium, so none is quoted here.
One genuine lever exists beyond the cover design itself: matching the deferred period to your real sick pay. If your employer pays three months of full pay, a four-week deferred period makes you pay twice for the same weeks. Written quotes against an identical specification — same benefit, same deferred period, same occupation class, same premium type — are the only honest comparison. Pay-out statistics matter when weighing price against reliability: ABI and GRiD data shows 97.9 per cent of individual protection claims were paid in 2024 and again in 2025. [1][2]
| Measure | Figure | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Total protection pay-outs, 2024 | £8 billion | Group and individual life, critical illness and income protection claims combined — a record year |
| Individual protection pay-outs, 2024 | £5.32 billion | Individual life, income protection and critical illness claims, up 10% on 2023 |
| Individual claims paid, 2024 and 2025 | 97.9% | The share of individual protection claims insurers paid |
| Average individual claim, 2024 | £18,700 | Across all individual protection claim types — not an income-protection-specific figure |
| Paid every day, 2024 | £21.9 million | The daily equivalent paid to people experiencing bereavement, illness and injury |
| Total protection pay-outs, 2025 | £7.84 billion | £5.15 billion of it on individual policies; 258,000 new claims |
| 2023 | £7.34 billion |
|---|---|
| 2024 | £8 billion |
| 2025 | £7.84 billion |
How to compare two quotes
- Fix the cover first: the amount, the term and whether premiums are guaranteed or reviewable.
- Ask for each quote in writing, with its date.
- Put the quotes side by side and mark every difference in terms before you look at price.
- Ask whether any exclusion or price increase was added because of your health answers.
Related guides
- What income protection is
- Your disclosure rights: income protection and pre-existing conditions
- If a claim goes wrong: do income protection policies pay out?
- Income protection, sick pay and benefits
Common questions
- Why can’t an average premium figure be used to predict a quote?
- Every circulated average blends different ages, occupations, health profiles and benefit levels into one number, so it describes no individual case. Income protection pricing is especially sensitive to occupation, because insurers grade jobs by how likely they are to cause absence, and to the deferred period, which removes short absences from the insurer’s risk altogether. Because those inputs vary so widely between people, an average carries none of the detail that actually sets a premium, which is why this guide treats any unsourced average as unusable for personal planning.
- What is the most reliable way to compare prices between insurers?
- Fix the specification first: the same monthly benefit, a deferred period matched to your own sick pay, a benefit period matched to your planned retirement age, and the same premium type across every quote. Then collect written quotes against that identical specification and compare them line by line, including the incapacity definition each one attaches. Comparing quotes built on different specifications tells you nothing useful, because a cheaper price often reflects a stricter definition or shorter benefit period rather than better value.
- What does choosing a longer deferred period do to the price?
- A longer deferred period can cut the premium substantially, because it removes every short absence from what the insurer has agreed to pay for — the insurer is only ever on the hook once you have been unable to work for that whole waiting time. The trade-off is that the gap before payments start has to be filled by employer sick pay and personal savings instead. Matching the deferred period to how long your own sick pay genuinely lasts is the way to capture that saving without leaving an unfunded gap.
Sources
- Association of British Insurers and GRiD, reported by Cover Magazine. Insurers paid £8bn in protection claims in 2024. Accessed 15 September 2026 (primary source)
- Association of British Insurers and GRiD, reported by Cover Magazine. Protection insurers paid £7.84bn in 2025. Accessed 15 September 2026 (primary source)