Guaranteed income: your salary when your health gives way
Page reviewed on 16 September 2026 Written by an FSMA-registered broker.
Ill or injured, a self-employed person only receives a flat-rate benefit from the health fund, unrelated to their real outgoings. Guaranteed income fills that gap with a replacement annuity, for as long as the incapacity lasts.
Guaranteed income is a replacement-income insurance for the self-employed and company directors: in the event of illness or an accident that leaves you unable to work, it pays an annuity on top of the state health-fund benefit, which is no more than a flat rate. Two clauses decide everything: whether cover is physiological or economic (how your incapacity is measured) and whether the basis is agreed sum or indemnity (how the annuity is calculated). The premium is in principle 100% deductible as a business expense. Since the 2026 reform, cover can be extended to age 67.
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30 daysStandard waiting period, extendable to 60, 90 or 120 days to bring the premium down
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67 yearsNew maximum age of cover since the 2026 reform, often with no new medical questionnaire
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9.6 %Insurance tax on the premium. Against that, the premium stays deductible as a business expense
What is guaranteed income insurance?
The moment a self-employed person stops, the invoicing stops. The bills do not.
Guaranteed income, sometimes called incapacity-for-work insurance or, in its collective form, social insurance for the self-employed, is insurance that pays you a replacement income when illness or an accident prevents you from working. Unlike an employee, a self-employed person has no employer to keep paying a salary and no automatic income guarantee: the moment they stop, the invoicing stops, but not the outgoings, social contributions, business rent, loans, household costs.
The state does not leave the self-employed with no net at all: through your health fund it pays an incapacity benefit. But that benefit is a flat rate, set on your family situation alone and with no link whatsoever to your real income. For someone used to a certain standard of living, the drop is brutal. Guaranteed income is precisely the private insurance that fills that gap, on top of the statutory benefit.
Not to be confused: guaranteed income covers the loss of income during incapacity. It replaces neither the voluntary supplementary pension (PLCI), which builds your retirement, nor accidents-at-work insurance for any employees, nor hospital insurance which reimburses care. Each answers a distinct risk.
What the state actually pays you: the gap to fill
This is the point that counters and bancassurers rarely put figures on. When a self-employed person becomes unfit for work, the health fund pays a agreed-sum benefit: it depends only on your family situation (single, cohabiting, with dependants), not on what you earned. In practice we are talking about an order of magnitude of a few tens of euros a day, an amount that rarely covers a working and private life.
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With dependants~€70 to €75 a day
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Single~€55 to €60 a day
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Cohabiting~€42 to €46 a day
Indicative flat-rate amounts, index-linked, to be confirmed with the INAMI or your health fund. They make the essential point: the statutory flat rate is counted in tens of euros a day, whatever you earned before. Someone taking home €4,000 net a month therefore drops to a fraction of their means: exactly the gap guaranteed income exists to fill.
The point is best made in one picture. Without guaranteed income, incapacity leaves you only the health-fund flat rate, around a quarter of your usual income: all the rest you lose. With guaranteed income, the insurer stacks an annuity on top of that flat rate and brings you back close to your former standard of living. It never returns 100%, since the law forbids insurance from enriching you, but it leaves at most a gap of 10 to 20% depending on the insurer. In other words: guaranteed income turns a brutal fall into a mere setback.
With or without guaranteed income: what is left of your income
- Health-fund flat rate
- Guaranteed income annuity
- Uncovered gap (10 to 20%)
- Income lost with no cover
Physiological or economic: the clause that changes everything
Two guaranteed income policies can show the same rate and the same annuity, and still pay very differently when the day comes. The reason lies in the way your incapacity is measured. It is the first thing to check, and the first thing we look at with a client.
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A purely medical measure
Physiological incapacity
The rate is set on medical grounds alone, using the Belgian official scale of invalidity (BOBI). It is the same for everyone, whatever the trade: losing a finger is worth the same percentage for a pianist as for a desk worker.
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A measure tied to your trade
Economic incapacity
The rate takes account of the real impact on YOUR profession and of your scope for redeployment. The same impairment weighs far more heavily on a tiler, a dental surgeon or a physiotherapist than on office work. Truer to reality, but more expensive.
For a physical or highly specialised trade, economic cover is almost always the right choice: it reflects the real loss. For sedentary work, physiological cover can be enough. Many cheap policies are sold on a physiological basis without the client realising: the kind of blind spot that costs dearly on the day of the claim.
Agreed sum or indemnity: the trap of variable income
The second decisive clause: the way the annuity is calculated. It is particularly treacherous for the self-employed, whose income varies from year to year.
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Agreed sum
The annuity is fixed in advance when the policy is written. In the event of incapacity the insurer pays that agreed amount, whatever your income at the time. Ideal for fluctuating income: the cover stays stable.
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Indemnity
The annuity is capped at the loss actually suffered. If you keep part of your income, or if your latest results were weak, the payment can be sharply reduced, sometimes well below what you expected to receive.
For most self-employed people, the agreed-sum basis offers better security, because it disconnects the annuity from the ups and downs of your annual accounts. The indemnity basis can be defended in some set-ups, but you need to know what you are signing. This is exactly the detail an online comparison site never explains.
Incapacity of psychologicalorigin, burnout, depression, anxiety disorders, is the most sensitive point in these policies. Many insurers limit it (payment capped at one or two years per claim), attach special conditions, or exclude it altogether.
Given how often burnout strikes the self-employed, this is a clause to read before signing, not on the day you stop. We check as a matter of course how each policy treats psychological risk: that is often where the real difference between two quotes at the same price hides.
Waiting period, rate, duration: the dials of your policy
Once the two big clauses are settled, the policy is tuned on three dials that drive both your protection and your premium:
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Dial 01The waiting period
This is the initial period of incapacity during which the insurer does not yet pay. In guaranteed income the standard is 30 days; you can then extend it to 60, 90 or 120 days. The longer the period, the lower the premium, but the longer you must hold on alone at the start. The right choice depends on your cash flow.
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Dial 02The sum insured
You set the annuity to insure, up to a substantial share of your net income: insurance cannot pay you more than you lose, otherwise incapacity would become profitable and you would have no interest in returning to work.
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Dial 03The duration and the end age
You choose the age at which cover stops. The 2026 reform allows that age to be aligned with the legal pension, up to 67.
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On topThe options
A supplementary invalidity annuity, premium waiver during incapacity (the insurer pays the premium for you), indexation of the annuity, cover for relapses: extensions to weigh up.
What guaranteed income costs, and the tax treatment
There is no single price: the premium depends on your profile and your choices. The main factors:
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Age & state of healthFactor number one. The younger and healthier you are when you take cover out, the lower the premium and the easier the cover is to obtain.
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ProfessionA physical or high-risk trade costs more than office work, especially under economic cover.
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Annuity insuredThe level of income you want to cover: the premium follows in proportion.
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Waiting periodA short period (14 to 30 days) protects early but costs more; a long one (3 to 6 months) cuts the premium appreciably.
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Physiological or economicEconomic cover, which protects better, costs more than physiological cover.
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Options chosenPremium waiver, indexation, invalidity annuity: every added cover weighs on the price.
On the tax side, guaranteed income taken out in a professional capacity is in principle 100% deductible as a business expense : the premium reduces your taxable base. In return, an insurance tax of 9.60% applies to the premium, and the annuities paid in the event of a claim are taxable. The precise set-up differs depending on whether you contribute as an individual or through your company: a point to settle with your accountant.
In practice, for someone in their forties and in good health, the annual premium is of the order of 2.5 to 4.5% of the annuity insured for professional or office work, and 5.5 to 9% for a manual or high-risk trade. In other words, for an annuity of €30,000 a year, reckon roughly €750 to €1,350 for an office profile, and more for an exposed trade.
Against that: 9.60% tax on the premium, and the annuities paid are taxable.
Indicative annual premium, as a % of the annuity insured
2026 reform: cover extended to age 67
Until now, many guaranteed income policies stopped at 60 or 65, leaving a gap in cover just before the statutory pension, which now comes later. The 2026 reform allows you to extend cover to age 67, in line with the legal retirement age. An important point: with several insurers that extension is granted with no new medical questionnaire, a real advantage for anyone whose health has changed since the policy was first written.
If you hold an older policy ending at 60 or 65, it is worth checking whether the extension is open to you and on what terms. That is exactly the kind of policy review we are happy to run, contract in hand.
What guaranteed income does not cover
Waiting periods, the minimum incapacity rate that triggers payment and the exclusions vary widely from one insurer to the next. Two policies at the same price can cover very different realities: the real comparison is made on the general conditions, not on the premium.
- × Incapacity already existing when the policy was written, or conditions not declared (hence the importance of an honest medical questionnaire).
- × Certain medical exclusions (pre-existing conditions, sometimes the back or mental health depending on the policy) unless bought back or negotiated as an extension.
- × Intentional acts, fraud, and certain risky pursuits (extreme sports) depending on the conditions.
- × Simply stopping trading without medical incapacity: guaranteed income covers health, not a fall in turnover (that belongs to business interruption).
- × Building your pension: that is the role of the PLCI and the group insurance, not of guaranteed income.
Guaranteed income is not alone: three ways to protect your income
Depending on your status and your profile, guaranteed income combines with, or gives way to, two other tools. Confusing them risks either a gap or a duplication.
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All self-employed
Guaranteed income
Covers the loss of income in the event of incapacity through illness or accident. This is the basic and most complete protection, with the waiting period and annuity calibrated on your trade.
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All self-employed
Personal accident cover, 24/7
Pays only in the event of an accident, but anywhere and at any time (private life included), with lump sums for invalidity or death. Often an affordable complement, to be combined with guaranteed income rather than substituted for it, since it leaves illness aside.
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Companies
Keyman insurance
Taken out by the company on a key person (a director, a partner, an indispensable colleague). If that person becomes unfit for work or dies, the company receives a lump sum to absorb the loss of activity and hold on while it reorganises.
In practice: a self-employed individual often combines guaranteed income and personal accident cover ; a company adds keyman cover to protect the business itself, separate from the director's personal protection. The right combination depends on your structure: that is the call we make together.
“The question is not what it costs, but how much I actually receive the day I stop.”
When a self-employed client shows me their policy, I read two lines before the price: is it physiological or economic, and is it agreed sum or indemnity. That is where 90% of nasty surprises are decided. I have seen clients convinced they were well covered discover, once unfit for work, an annuity cut in half because the policy was on an indemnity basis and their last year had been weak. Good guaranteed income is set on your real trade and your real cash flow, not on a box ticked too fast. Taking cover out young and healthy is also the best way to lock in broad cover at a gentle price.
Offices in Ciney, Dinant, Eghezée and Brussels. FSMA-registered broker no. 111917.
Ask a question →The physiotherapist, the back, and “physiological” cover.
A self-employed physiotherapist in his forties had taken out a “cheap” guaranteed income policy through an online channel. A slipped disc puts him out of action: treating patients by hand is impossible. Medically, his physiologique incapacity rate is assessed at 25%, serious, but not huge on the Belgian official scale. And his policy paid on that physiological basis. The result: an annuity calculated on 25%, while for his trade he was in practice completely unable to work.
With economiccover, the real impact on his profession would have been measured, close to 100% incapacity to practise physiotherapy, and the annuity would have matched it. The difference in premium? Modest. The difference in payout? Decisive. That is exactly the call we frame when the policy is written.
What people ask us about guaranteed income
Your case is not here? Ask us, and we answer within 48 hours.
Ask my question →-
What is the difference between guaranteed income and the state health-fund benefit?
−The state, through your health fund, pays a self-employed person who is unfit for work a flat-rate amount, set on family situation alone and with no link to your real income, of the order of a few tens of euros a day, often far below your standard of living. Guaranteed income is a complementary private insurance: it pays you an annuity calculated on the income YOU chose to insure (a substantial share of your net income), on top of the health-fund benefit. It is that annuity which fills the gap between the statutory flat rate and your real outgoings.
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Should you choose physiological or economic cover?
−This is the most important clause in the policy. Under physiological cover, the incapacity rate is measured on medical grounds alone, using the Belgian official scale of invalidity (BOBI), the same for everyone. Under economic cover, the real impact on YOUR trade is taken into account: the same impairment weighs more heavily on a dental surgeon or a tiler than on sedentary work. For a self-employed person whose trade is physical or highly specialised, economic cover is almost always preferable, but it costs more. It is a judgement call to make case by case.
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Is the guaranteed income premium tax deductible?
−Yes. Premiums for guaranteed income taken out in connection with your activity are in principle 100% deductible as a business expense, which reduces your taxable base accordingly. In return, an insurance tax of 9.60% applies to the premium, and annuities paid in the event of a claim are taxable. The exact tax set-up depends on your status (individual or company): a point to frame with your accountant and your broker.
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Which waiting period should you choose for guaranteed income?
−The waiting period is the time, at the start of the incapacity, during which the insurer does not yet pay. In guaranteed income the standard is 30 days; you can then extend it to 60, 90 or 120 days. Simple rule: the longer the period, the lower the premium, but the longer you must hold on alone at the start. The right choice depends on your cash flow: someone who can absorb three or four months without income will pay less than someone who needs cover from day thirty.
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Up to what age can I insure my income in 2026?
−You insure a substantial share of your net income: insurance cannot pay you more than you lose, otherwise incapacity would become profitable and you would have no interest in returning to work. On duration, the 2026 reform allows cover to be extended to 67, in line with the legal pension age, and in several policies that extension needs no new medical questionnaire. The exact annuity levels and durations are to be confirmed against the insurer and the policy.
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Can the insurer refuse to cover me if I have had health problems?
−Yes, it is possible, but an outright refusal remains the exception. Guaranteed income involves a medical questionnaire (and sometimes an examination): on the basis of your history, the insurer will usually adjust the policy instead. In practice it most often applies either a loading (a higher premium to offset the increased risk) or a specific exclusion aimed at conditions already known: an earlier back problem may be excluded, while everything else stays covered. Better to declare everything honestly: an omission can lead to a refusal to pay on the day of the claim. Taking cover out young and healthy is precisely how you avoid loadings and exclusions.
Guaranteed income calibrated on your real trade
Describe your activity and your situation to us in two minutes. We compare the policies on the market, settle the two clauses that matter, physiological or economic and agreed sum or indemnity, and propose the right annuity with the right waiting period.
Théo Gillard
Théo looks after income protection for Cinassur's self-employed clients and company directors: guaranteed income, personal accident cover, keyman cover, provision for the future. His obsession: that the cover fits the client's real trade and real cash flow, not a standard product. At Cinassur we do not sell a contract, we audit your risk and negotiate the protection that matches it. How we work →
Further reading
- Self-employed & SMEs Professional indemnity The cover for your professional work. →
- Self-employed & SMEs Public liability The physical damage your activity causes. →
- Self-employed & SMEs Business interruption The company's income after a loss. →
This page is for information only and does not constitute personal advice within the meaning of the Belgian Act of 4 April 2014. The amounts, covers, tax ceilings and obligations mentioned are indicative and to be confirmed against the insurer and changes in regulation (2026 figures subject to market confirmation). For an analysis tailored to your situation, contact Cinassur.