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Disability / income-protection needs calculator
Group disability coverage often leaves high earners underinsured once its monthly cap kicks in, and an employer-paid benefit is worth less after tax than it looks. This sizes the monthly income you would actually keep if you could not work, shows where your coverage erodes, and gives you the gap an individual policy would need to fill.
Background reading: Protecting income & wealth
Monthly income-protection gap
$18,500 / mo
$222,000 per year an individual policy would need to fill.
Coverage waterfall
Income to protect$25,000
Group LTD after cap-$10,000
After-tax haircut on group benefit+$3,500
Remaining monthly gap$18,500
Effective replacement after the cap and tax
Stated group replacement rate60.0%
Effective rate, face value24.0%
Effective rate, after tax15.6%
Where this goes next
Sizing the gap is where general education stops. Which policy closes it (benefit amount, own-occupation versus any-occupation, elimination period, carrier, riders) is a personal decision for a CFP.
Assumptions and simplifications
- All amounts are monthly unless labeled annual; gross income is divided by 12.
- A taxable employer-paid group benefit is netted to an after-tax equivalent at a single disclosed flat rate (default 35%), not a computed tax liability; an individually paid benefit is treated as tax-free.
- The SSDI estimate is capped at the program maximum and, when no estimate is supplied, defaults to that maximum on the assumption a high earner lands at the cap; it is treated as a tax-free floor and not tax-adjusted.
- The elimination period and policy definitions (own-occupation versus any-occupation) affect which policy fits, not the size of the monthly gap, so they are out of scope here.