Income protection cost UK 2026: what 1,080 real quotes show

At a glance

• Cheapest is not typical: In the quotes below, a 35 year old protecting £2,000 a month pays from £11.73 a month for a 2 year pay-out period, or from £34.11 a month for a full term policy. The median quotes are £15.47 and £38.92.
• The pay-out period is the biggest single lever: At most ages, full term cover costs roughly two to three times as much as a 2 year pay-out for the same monthly benefit.
• Age multiplies cost: For £2,000 a month on a 2 year pay-out, the cheapest quote rises from £7.77 at age 25 to £34.14 at age 55, a 4.4 times increase.
• Small benefits are not proportionally cheap: Minimum premiums mean £500 a month of cover rarely costs a quarter of £2,000 a month of cover.
• These are best case prices: Every quote below is for a never-smoker, employed, working as an accountant, with an 8 week waiting period. Smokers, manual workers and anyone with health conditions should expect to pay more.

How much does income protection actually cost?

Quotes run on 3 November 2026. Prices change, so treat these as a guide and get your own quote.

Most guides give you a rough age band and leave it there. Under 30s pay this, over 50s pay that. That hides the two things that actually drive the price: how much monthly benefit you choose, and how long the policy will keep paying out on a claim.

So instead, here are real quotes. On 3 November 2026 we ran 108 scenarios across the UK market through an adviser quote system: nine ages from 20 to 60, six levels of monthly benefit from £500 to £3,000, and two pay-out periods. We used the same adviser quote system our advisers use when they compare insurers for Eleos customers. Of the quotes returned, 1,080 matched the specification exactly, with a level benefit, guaranteed premiums, an own occupation claim definition, an 8 week waiting period and a policy end age of 65. The tables below show the cheapest of those comparable quotes and the median, which is the middle quote of the set.

One profile runs through every scenario, so the tables isolate the effect of age, benefit and pay-out period:

• Who: a man, employed, working as an accountant, who has never smoked, earning £100,000 a year
• Waiting period: 8 weeks from the start of an absence before payments begin
• Benefit: level, so it stays the same rather than rising with inflation
• Premiums: guaranteed, so the insurer cannot raise them later
• Policy ends: at age 65

How much does £2,000 a month of income protection cost?

£2,000 a month is a useful reference point. It is roughly the take-home pay of someone earning around £29,000 a year, and it is well inside the maximum most insurers allow, which is usually up to 65% of gross earnings.

Read the age 60 row with care: only one insurer returned a comparable quote at that age, so the cheapest and median figures are the same quote, not a market range.

What the numbers show

Pay-out period: This is the choice most people underestimate. A 2 year policy stops paying after two years on a single claim. A full term policy keeps paying until the policy ends at 65 if you never recover. At 35, moving from 2 years to full term takes the cheapest £2,000 quote from £11.73 to £34.11, nearly three times as much. The gap narrows with age, from 2.9 times at 35 to 2.0 times at 55, because there are simply fewer years left to 65 for the insurer to cover.

Age: Cost does not creep up, it compounds. The cheapest 2 year quote for £2,000 a month is £7.77 at 25, £15.28 at 40 and £34.14 at 55. Waiting 15 years roughly doubles the price at each step. This is the practical argument for buying younger, when you are also more likely to be accepted without health related loadings.

Monthly benefit: Above the minimum premium level, cost scales fairly evenly with benefit. At 45 on a full term policy, the cheapest quote is £12.96 for £500 a month, £25.92 for £1,000, £51.84 for £2,000 and £67.87 for £3,000. Below that level it does not scale: at 35, £500 a month on a 2 year policy costs £5.17 against £11.73 for four times the cover. If you are quoted a small amount of cover, check what doubling it costs before you decide it is unaffordable.

Cheapest versus typical: The cheapest quote is a floor, not an expectation. For £2,000 a month, the median quote runs from 14% to 75% above the cheapest, depending on age and pay-out period, and across all 108 scenarios the gap reaches 93%. Insurers price the same person very differently, and the cheapest insurer changes from one scenario to the next, so comparing quotes is worth real money.

Quirks in the data: Honest pricing data is not always tidy. At age 20 on a 2 year policy, £1,500 a month (£5.42) came back cheaper than £1,000 a month (£5.86), because different insurers set different minimum premiums. And at 60, full term cover for £500 a month (£18.97) is slightly cheaper than at 55 (£19.34), because only one insurer quoted and the term left to 65 is shorter. Neither figure is a mistake. Both are reminders that there is no per £100 formula for this product.

Income protection prices by age and monthly benefit

Cheapest monthly premium: 2 year pay-out period

Columns are the monthly benefit the policy pays out. All other assumptions are as stated above.

Cheapest monthly premium: full term pay-out period

Full term means the policy can keep paying a claim until the policy end age of 65.

What else changes the price of income protection

The tables hold four things constant that will move your own quote, in some cases by more than age does.

Occupation: Every quote above is for an accountant, a low risk, desk based job. Manual and higher risk work costs more, and some occupations are hard to cover at all. See how UK insurers treat income protection by occupation. If you work for yourself, insurers also look at your profit rather than your turnover: see income protection for the self-employed.

Health and lifestyle: You will be asked about your current and past health, your family's medical history, how much you drink and whether you smoke. These quotes are for someone who has never smoked. Smokers should expect noticeably higher premiums, and existing conditions can add a loading, bring exclusions, or lead to a refusal.

Waiting period: This is the gap between stopping work and the policy starting to pay, sometimes called the deferred period. Every quote above uses 8 weeks. A shorter wait, such as 1 or 4 weeks, costs more. A longer wait, such as 13 or 26 weeks, costs less. Match it to your employer's sick pay or your savings, so you are not paying for cover that overlaps money you would receive anyway.

Benefit period: Shorter pay-out periods of 1, 2 or 5 years are cheaper because the insurer's maximum exposure is capped. Full term cover is the most expensive and the most complete.

Income and level of cover: Income protection replaces earnings, it is not meant to pay more than you earn. Most insurers cap the benefit at around 60% to 65% of gross earnings, often less on earnings above £60,000. Eleos's online cover pays up to 65%, to a maximum of £2,000 a month. You can choose less, and a lower monthly benefit means a lower premium.

How to keep the cost of income protection down

• Lengthen the waiting period: If your employer pays full sick pay for three months, a 13 week wait aligns the policy with the day that pay stops, and you stop paying for duplicated cover.
• Shorten the pay-out period: Dropping from full term to 2 years cut the cheapest £2,000 quote at 35 from £34.11 to £11.73. The trade-off is real: a condition that keeps you off work for five years would only be paid for two of them.
• Cover the essentials, not your full salary: Work out housing, bills and food first. Covering £1,500 instead of £2,000 at 40 on a full term policy took the cheapest quote from £42.46 to £33.02.
• Buy while you are younger and healthier: The age steps in the tables are the cost of waiting, and health loadings only become more likely over time.
• Compare quotes: With median quotes often a third or more above the cheapest, taking the first price you are given is an expensive habit.

How much cover do you need?

Start with the essentials you would still have to pay if your income stopped: housing, utilities, food, transport, and any debts that do not pause. Add a margin for the rest of normal life if you can afford it. If that total is more than 65% of your gross earnings, the cap bites and you should plan for the gap with savings or employer cover instead.

Then set the premium against the risk it covers. Your income funds everything else you pay for, including every other insurance policy. A policy that costs less than a typical monthly subscription bundle, which is where the 2 year quotes for younger workers sit in the tables above, is protecting the income all of those subscriptions depend on.

Get your own figure

Every figure on this page is for one specific profile. Your age, job, health, smoking status and choices on waiting period and pay-out period will produce a different number, and getting a quote does not commit you to buying.

There are two ways to get a price from Eleos:

• Online, in a few minutes: Eleos income protection pays up to £2,000 a month, for up to 12 months per claim, after a 60 or 90 day wait. Get your price.
• Through an adviser: for full term cover, a different waiting period or more than £2,000 a month, our advisers compare the insurers in the tables above. Call 0808 196 1113.