Sick pay and income protection
Income protection: the gap after sick pay and ESA
Enter your pay, your company sick pay and your monthly outgoings. The timeline follows the state rates for 2026/27 and shows what is left to cover.
Independent site, not an insurer, broker or government service: benefit claims are made only on GOV.UK.
Income during a long absence, first two years
Example, not your result yet· change a figure to see yours
Shortfall over 104 weeks
£38,227
| Income received, before tax | £10,511 |
| SSP a week | £123.25 |
| Savings would need to last | 19 months of outgoings |
New Style ESA work-related activity group assumed after the assessment, if your National Insurance record qualifies.
Income protection insurance pays a monthly income when illness or injury stops you working, after a waiting time called the deferred period, until you go back, the policy term ends or the benefit period runs out. Before choosing one, it helps to know what you would get without it. Take an employee on £2,800 a month, with 4 weeks of full company sick pay and £2,000 a month of outgoings. After those weeks comes Statutory Sick Pay of £123.25 a week, until week 28. Then New Style ESA, if the National Insurance record qualifies, at £95.55 a week. Over two years the household receives £10,511 before tax and falls £38,227 short of its outgoings. A policy paying £1,500 a month after 13 weeks would cut that shortfall to £6,845.
Rates read and sums checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How the figures are worked out
The timeline the calculator follows
The table sets out the case loaded above, phase by phase. Weeks are counted from the first day off. Company pay is treated as never falling below Statutory Sick Pay while SSP is due, which is how employers normally pay it: SSP is part of the company payment, not on top of it. When SSP ends at week 28, the calculator assumes a claim for New Style ESA straight away, paid at the assessment rate for 13 weeks and then, in the work-related activity group, for up to 365 days in all.
| Phase | Weeks | A week | A month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company sick pay, full | 1 to 4 | £646.15 | £2,800 |
| Statutory Sick Pay | 5 to 28 | £123.25 | £534 |
| New Style ESA, assessment rate | 29 to 41 | £95.55 | £414 |
| New Style ESA, work-related activity group | 42 to 80 | £95.55 | £414 |
| After New Style ESA ends | 81 to 104 | £0.00 | £0 |
The last line is the one people rarely see written down. Once New Style ESA in the work-related activity group runs out, there is no more contribution-based income at all; what follows depends on Universal Credit, which looks at a partner’s earnings and at savings above £6,000. For someone placed in the support group after the assessment, ESA continues at £145.90 a week with no end date. On the same pay and outgoings, that changes the two-year shortfall to £32,762.
What changed in April 2026
From 6 April 2026, GOV.UK’s guidance sets out two changes to Statutory Sick Pay. It is now paid from the first day of sickness, where it used to start only after unpaid waiting days, and the Lower Earnings Limit no longer shuts anyone out: a low earner who used to get nothing now gets 80% of average weekly earnings, capped at the flat rate. For most full-time employees the weekly amount is the flat £123.25, and the 28-week limit is unchanged. So the reform helps with short absences and low pay; it does nothing for the months after week 28, which is where a long absence becomes expensive.
A generous scheme changes the picture
Many public sector and large private employers pay full salary for months, then half. With 13 weeks of full pay and 13 of half pay instead of four weeks, the same household’s two-year shortfall falls to £32,585. The deferred period page shows how to line a policy up with the end of such a scheme, so that you do not pay for months the employer already covers.
Reading a policy, not a price
This site shows no premiums, because no insurer publishes prices that may be reused here, and every quote depends on your job and health. What you can compare from a policy summary without giving your details is its shape: the definition of incapacity (your own job, any suited job, or daily tasks), the deferred period, how long each claim can last, whether the benefit rises with inflation and whether the premium is fixed or reviewable. A policy that pays only for two years per claim costs less than one that pays to retirement, and the timeline above shows what each would leave uncovered.
Self-employed people have no company scheme and no SSP; their own timeline starts straight at ESA.