Protection
Disability cover
If you are unable to work as a self-employed person due to illness or accident, social security pays you only 40 to 60 euro gross per day. Meanwhile, your fixed costs simply continue.
- Who we help
- Self-employed people, professionals, and company directors.
- The tax benefit
- Often to be included as an additional guarantee alongside your VAPZ (the free supplementary pension for the self-employed), IPT (an individual pension commitment funded by your company), or POZ (the pension agreement for the self-employed without a company).
What is disability cover?
Disability cover protects you, your family, or your company when illness or accident means you can no longer work part time or full time. You decide for yourself how broad your protection is and how the payout is calculated. As part of family protection, this cover gives you up to 80% of your gross salary as a monthly payout, on top of the payout from your health insurance fund. You decide against which causes of disability you insure yourself (illness and/or accidents). In the event of permanent disability, you receive a payout until your retirement age.
What is disability in insurance terms?
Disability here means that the insured person is no longer able to work. We speak of economic incapacity: guaranteed income cover intervenes when the earned income falls away. When the insured person can work partially, the payout is adjusted pro rata to the degree of partial economic disability. As soon as the insured person can work again, the payout stops.
Cause: illness, accident, or ...?
Usually both illnesses and accidents are covered. Pregnancy is neither an illness nor an accident, yet in certain cases disability due to a "pathological" pregnancy is insured. Nowadays a lot of attention is also given to possible cover in the event of disability due to burnout and CFS. For a self-employed director, additional cover for accidents is best placed in a personal accident cover, 24/7 contract. This can be an interesting supplementary cover alongside a classic guaranteed income.
Degree: economic, physiological, or both?
In certain cases, an insurer can also cover the degree of physiological invalidity (see here for a description of the Official Belgian Scale of Invalidity), if this is higher than the economic invalidity and if the economic invalidity reaches a certain threshold (e.g. 25%). For certain occupational categories, knowledge professions in particular, it can be worthwhile to take out so-called combined "eco/physio" cover.
Who is it for?
Every self-employed person, with or without a company, who is not disabled.
Taking out the right disability cover: an art that Life Experts has fully mastered
Our experts determine the right choice with you:
- What amount do you want to insure, and should this amount vary over time?
- What waiting period do you want: 30 days, 60 days, or longer?
- What payout duration is desired: until age 67, or a limited cover period?
- Do you want to insure economic invalidity, or also physiological invalidity?
- Do you want to insure CFS, burnout, or depression, and what is possible there?
- Do you want automatic indexation of the payout, of the insured amount, or of both?
- Is it important to you that you can convert a monthly annuity into a one-off capital sum?
- To what extent can the policy be adjusted by the insurer?
- Do you want additional cover for disability caused by an accident?
- Is your specific occupational risk covered?
- Are your leisure activities sufficiently covered?
- Do you take out the policy privately or through your company?
- Can you replace or transfer an existing disability cover contract?
- What medical formalities can you expect?
- What financial formalities will there be?
- What impact does all of the above have on the cost of the policy?
Taxation
On the premium
The premiums paid are fully tax deductible. A premium tax of 9.60% is payable.
On the payout
The income you receive in the event of disability is taxable under personal income tax, but is treated as replacement income. As a result, it is taxed at a lower rate than earned income.
Does this fit your situation?
You will get an honest answer, even if that answer is "no".
Disclaimer: Life Experts provides insurance solutions for self-employed directors, liberal professions, SMEs and large companies. You will find the basic information for each type of solution on this website. With the product descriptions and the product overview on this website, we do not aim to follow a tax or legal classification, but a pragmatic and practical one. A turnover insurance, for instance, is fiscally a company-director insurance. And a death cover or a disability insurance can be taken out within the tax regimes of IPT, VAPZ, POZ, long-term saving, pension saving, and so on.