The Health Guide — clear answers, healthier tomorrows

    Income protection

    How much income protection do I need?

    Written by Andrew Buscu, PMI Specialist & Copywriter, PremierPMI
    Reviewed by Parvoz Haydarov, Founder, PremierPMI

    Published 15 September 2026 · Last reviewed 15 September 2026 · Next review 15 December 2026 · 3 min read

    The short answer

    Add up the monthly outgoings that would continue if your income stopped — housing, utilities, food, debts, dependants. Then subtract employer sick pay, Statutory Sick Pay, savings you would commit and any existing cover. The gap, subject to the insurer’s cap as a percentage of your earnings, is the benefit worth quoting for.

    PremierPMI is an insurance broker, authorised and regulated by the FCA (FRN 1029667). We may receive commission if you take out a policy. How we are funded.

    In this guide2 sections

    What to know about working out how much income protection you need

    1. Start from essential monthly outgoings that would continue if your income stopped, not your salary. Read more
    2. Subtract employer sick pay, Statutory Sick Pay, usable savings and any existing cover. Read more
    3. The remaining gap is capped by the insurer at a percentage of your earnings. Read more
    4. A written calculation is easy to revisit after a mortgage, pay rise or new dependant. Read more

    Thinking about working out how much income protection you need

    What works well

    • The needs method ties cover to real outgoings, not round numbers.
    • Subtracting sick pay and existing cover avoids paying twice.
    • A written calculation is easy to review and update.

    What to watch

    • Employer sick pay ends when the job does.
    • Statutory Sick Pay stops after 28 weeks.
    • The benefit cap can sit below the gap you calculate.

    The arithmetic, in the right order

    Start with the essentials: list the monthly outgoings that would not stop if you could not work — rent or mortgage, council tax, utilities, food, debt payments, childcare and travel. That total, not your salary, is the number the benefit needs to approach. Then subtract what already exists: contractual employer sick pay (check your contract, not your assumptions, and note when it steps down), Statutory Sick Pay at £123.25 a week for eligible employees for up to 28 weeks[1][2], savings you are genuinely prepared to commit, and any cover you already hold — including an employer group income protection scheme, which many people forget they have. The remainder is the monthly gap. Finally, apply the insurer’s cap: policies limit the benefit to a percentage of your earnings, so the figure you can buy may be lower than the gap you calculated[3] — which is when the deferred period and your savings do the rest of the work.

    Write the calculation down with dates and sources, and revisit it after every major change — a new mortgage, a new child, a pay rise or a paid-off loan all move the number. Whatever the specifics of working out how much income protection you need, 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.

    Related guides

    Looking at cover with PremierPMI

    PremierPMI is a specialist private medical insurance broker and the publisher of The Health Guide. If you want to talk through what this means for your own cover, you can start there.

    Or, if you would rather start here, send an enquiry and PremierPMI will contact you.

    PremierPMI is an insurance broker, authorised and regulated by the FCA (FRN 1029667). We may receive commission if you take out a policy. How we are funded.

    Common questions

    Why start from outgoings rather than from current salary?
    The benefit only needs to cover what would still need paying if your income stopped — rent or mortgage, council tax, utilities, food, debt payments, childcare and travel. Salary includes spending that could be cut in a crisis, so using it as the starting point tends to overstate what cover is actually needed. Working from essential outgoings keeps the figure grounded in what would genuinely have to be paid, which also makes the resulting number easier to defend and update later as circumstances change.
    What should be subtracted before deciding on a benefit amount?
    Subtract anything that would already cover part of the gap: contractual employer sick pay, checked against your actual contract rather than assumption; Statutory Sick Pay for eligible employees; savings you are genuinely prepared to commit; and any existing cover, including an employer group income protection scheme, which is commonly forgotten. What remains after those deductions is the real monthly gap a new policy needs to close, before the insurer’s own cap as a percentage of earnings is applied.
    How often should the calculation be redone?
    Revisit it after any change that moves the outgoings or the existing support on either side of the sum: a new mortgage or rent increase, a new child, a pay rise, a paid-off loan, or a change of employer with different contractual sick pay. Because the calculation is written down with its inputs, updating it is a matter of changing the figures that moved rather than starting again. Treating it as a one-off at the point of buying cover risks the benefit drifting away from the real gap over the years.

    Sources and methodology

    1. [1] GOV.UK. “Statutory Sick Pay”. Published Accessed 15 September 2026. View source(opens in a new tab)Primary source
    2. [2] Aviva. “Income protection insurance — product features”. Published Accessed 15 September 2026. View source(opens in a new tab)Primary source
    3. [3] Which? Money. “Income protection explained”. Published Accessed 8 October 2026. View source(opens in a new tab)Primary source

    We cite primary sources wherever possible. Read about our sourcing methodology.

    Written by

    Andrew Buscu

    PMI Specialist & Copywriter, PremierPMI

    • Whole-of-market private medical insurance adviser
    • Claims and renewal specialist

    Andrew is a member of the private medical insurance advisory team. He gathers detailed client requirements and liaises with insurers to arrange tailored quotes across the whole UK market, guiding clients from first quote through to claims and renewal. In one case he reduced a client renewal premium from £36,000 to £11,520 without reducing cover.

    Read full profile

    Reviewed by

    Parvoz Haydarov

    Founder, PremierPMI

    • Founder of PremierPMI
    • Whole-of-market private medical insurance

    Parvoz founded PremierPMI as a specialist private medical insurance brokerage. He sets the direction of the firm — insurer relationships, service standards, compliance culture and the editorial bar for everything published under the PremierPMI name — and personally reviews the largest corporate and family cases before they go to market.

    Read full profile

    Related articles

    Keep reading

    More guides you might find useful