Disability Insurance Calculator

Disability coverage replaces a portion of your paycheck when illness or injury keeps you from working, and knowing roughly what it costs lets you weigh that protection against the rest of your budget. The estimate here gives you a rough starting figure so you can compare policies before you sit down with an agent or sign anything.

Six inputs drive the estimate: annual income, the share of it to insure (50%, 60% or 70%), age, occupation class (office/professional or manual/labor), the elimination period you wait through before benefits start, and the benefit period. The annual benefit is income times that share. The premium is a percentage of the annual benefit: 1.5% for office work or 2.5% for manual work at ages 30-39, multiplied by 0.7 under 30, 1.4 at 40-49, 2.0 at 50-59 and 2.5 at 60 and over. A 60-, 90- or 180-day elimination period cuts that by 15%, 25% or 40% compared with 30 days, and a 2- or 5-year benefit period by 40% or 20% compared with benefits to age 65. These factors are the calculator's own simplified assumptions, not any insurer's rate table.

Treat every number here as a ballpark. Your final premium depends on your health, your specific occupation, and the carrier you choose, so two people with identical incomes can be quoted very differently. Two pitfalls deserve attention: picking a short elimination period when you lack the emergency savings to bridge the early weeks drives the cost up unnecessarily, and lowballing how much income you'd actually need during a disability leaves you underinsured exactly when it matters.