Income protection - do you know your companies sick pay policy?

I’m seeing more and more clients that don’t know what their sick pay arrangements are with the company they work for. As well as self employed people that have no income protection in place if they’re unable to work.

Are you fully aware of your company’s sick pay policy? For example if you were off sick for the next 6 months would your company pay you your full salary? Maybe only half? Or would you just receive statutory sick pay which is proving to be more common now days. Statutory sick pay is currently just £94.25 per week. If you were to only receive statutory sick pay how would that effect you and your family’s life style?

Could you really cope on statutory sick pay?

If you were unable to work long term due to sickness or injury what impact would it have? If your total monthly income was £377 would that cause you a problem? For most of the people I speak to with families that figure would barely cover the monthly food bill. Also statutory sick pay stops after 28 weeks. After this point you have to apply for employment support allowance which is not easy to get. For this reason I’m very passionate about income protection and the value it can offer people. It’s something I always recommend to all of my self employed clients. But even as a permanent employee now days. Unless you’re part of a large company, not many people will be paid their full salary if you’re off work long term with sickness or injury. Most companies will put you on statutory sick pay straight away. Even one month of such a reduction in pay can have a catastrophic impact on peoples lives.

Additionally, even if you were to be paid in full for 6 or 12 months whilst off sick. What happens after that? If your mortgage term is 20 years for example, what will you do to maintain the payments after sick pay stops?

There are some really good benefits with the new income protection products on the market now days. Policies that are tailored to suit your personal circumstances. If you don’t have any provision in place to protect your income and you’d like to find out more about it get in touch. We can have a chat about your situation and hopefully find you a solution to give you and your family peace of mind. Additionally if you already have a policy that you have had for some time now would be a great time to review that. There may be an improved income protection product available for you now.