Written by Henry Smith · Reviewed by Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver — licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931) · Last updated 2026-09-08

Income Protection Cost NZ: Prices by Age, Job, Wait and Insurer

Income protection for a 35-year-old non-smoking man, with a $6,000 monthly benefit, a 13-week wait and cover running to age 65, was quoted between $26.28 and $36.64 a fortnight across six insurers by Policywise (retrieved 19 August 2026). A woman on the identical profile was quoted $38.09 to $54.14. Published illustration only, not a quote.

That is the headline number, and it is also the least interesting number on this page. The price of income protection is not really set by which insurer you choose. It is set by your age, your occupation and the length of cover you buy, and those three levers move the figure by multiples rather than by percentages. This page charts all three from published sources, and shows the arithmetic.

What does income protection cost at 35?

A $6,000 monthly benefit is roughly what a $96,000 salary supports at the standard 75% replacement level. On Policywise's published grid for a 35-year-old non-smoker with a 13-week wait, cover to age 65 ranged from $26.28 to $36.64 a fortnight for a man and $38.09 to $54.14 for a woman (retrieved 19 August 2026). Multiply by 26 and divide by 12 and those become roughly $57 to $79 a month, and $83 to $117 a month, respectively.

Fortnightly prices for a 35-year-old non-smoker, employed, $6,000 monthly benefit, 13-week waiting period, cover to age 65, as published by Policywise (retrieved 19 August 2026). Published illustration only, not a quote.

Two things fall out of that table that the marketing never mentions.

The first is the spread. Cheapest to dearest is 39% for the man and 42% for the woman, on cover that is nominally the same product with the same waiting period and the same benefit period. On a two-year benefit period the same six insurers are only 26% apart for the man. The longer the benefit period, the more the choice of insurer matters, which is the opposite of what most people assume, because the long benefit periods are where insurers price their own claims experience rather than a short, cheap, low-risk tail.

The second is the gender gap. On identical cover, the women's prices in that grid sit 45% to 66% above the men's. That is not a rounding difference and it is not an error. Income protection is one of the few personal insurance products where women are consistently and substantially dearer than men, because the claim rates that sit behind the pricing differ. It means that a household comparing "what it costs us" cannot take a man's quote and assume the other half will be similar.

One caution about that grid, since we have read all four of its profiles. In the Policywise tables (retrieved 19 August 2026) the self-employed female rows for cover to age 70 jump to $110 to $135 a fortnight, while every other row in the same table moves by a few dollars and the male self-employed to-age-70 rows do not behave that way at all. We think that block is a publishing error rather than a real price, and we have left it out of the analysis above rather than repeat it.

What does income protection cost by age?

Age moves the price more than any other single factor, and no New Zealand comparison site publishes income protection prices on an age ladder. The one published New Zealand schedule that does price every year of age is SuperLife's disability income insurance rate table, which sets out the annual rate for each $1,000 of cover by age, sex, job category and benefit period. It is dated 2 November 2009 and it is a workplace-scheme rate rather than a retail one, so read it for the shape of the curve, not for the level.

Indexed to age 30, the shape is brutal.

Cost index for a category A job with cover to age 65 and a three-month wait, from SuperLife's published male rate schedule dated 2 November 2009 (retrieved 19 August 2026). Rates are stated per $1,000 of annual cover; the index is our arithmetic, not the publisher's.

Read the right-hand column. The same cover costs about twelve times as much at 55 as it does at 30. It roughly doubles between 35 and 40, doubles again by 45, and doubles again by 50. Nothing else in personal insurance behaves quite like this, and it is why "I will sort it out later" is a more expensive decision here than it is for life cover.

Note also the small kink at the bottom: on that schedule a 25-year-old pays about 14% more than a 30-year-old for the same cover. Disability claim rates in the early twenties are not the lowest point of the curve.

Does the shape still hold at current retail prices? We can cross-check two published points on the same underwriter. AA Life advertises income protection from $16.52 a week, based on a $5,000 monthly benefit for a 40-year-old non-smoking female AA member in a professional office job, with a 90-day wait and a two-year benefit period, and discloses that the policies are underwritten by Asteron Life (retrieved 19 August 2026). That is $3.30 a week per $1,000 of monthly benefit. The Policywise grid puts Asteron at $28.49 a fortnight for a 35-year-old non-smoking woman with a $6,000 benefit, a 13-week wait and the same two-year benefit period, $2.37 a week per $1,000. Five years of age, same underwriter, roughly a 39% increase. That is a two-point sanity check across two distribution channels rather than a curve, and the AA figure also carries a 5% AA member discount, but it points the same way.

What does income protection cost for a tradesperson?

Occupation is the second multiplier, and it is bigger than most people expect. MoneyHub obtained quotes from five insurers for a 35-year-old non-smoking man on a $100,000 salary with a $6,250 monthly benefit and a four-week wait, on two profiles: a company-employed accountant or office worker, and a self-employed builder, carpenter or plumber (updated 11 June 2026, retrieved 19 August 2026).

Annual prices for a 35-year-old male non-smoker, $6,250 monthly benefit, four-week wait, cover to age 65, as published by MoneyHub NZ (updated 11 June 2026, retrieved 19 August 2026). MoneyHub states the quotes were supplied by LifeDirect. The two columns differ by employment status as well as occupation class. Published illustration only, not a quote.

The uplift column is our arithmetic on MoneyHub's published figures: tradesperson divided by office worker, minus one. It runs from 68% at Asteron Life to 108% at AIA, and it averages 82% across the five. Anyone who has read that a trade occupation adds "40% to 70%" to the price should treat that as out of date. On these published quotes it is closer to a doubling.

The more useful finding sits underneath it. Across the five insurers, the office-worker prices are 26% apart and the tradesperson prices are 33% apart. AIA sits mid-field for the office worker, within 1.4% of Chubb, and is the dearest of the five for the tradesperson by a further 12% over the next dearest. If you work with your hands, the choice of insurer is worth materially more to you than it is to someone at a desk, and the ranking you would get from a generic comparison table is not your ranking. Chubb, on that same grid, does not offer a to-age-70 payment term to the tradesperson at all.

What does a longer waiting period save?

More than most people expect at the start, and much less than they expect further along. Cross-reading two published New Zealand quote grids for the same five insurers, the same age and the same sex, a four-week waiting period on cover to age 65 was priced 51% to 113% above a 13-week wait. That saving is real. So is the cost of taking it: on a $6,000 monthly benefit, the 13-week option asks you to fund $18,000 of living costs yourself instead of $5,538.

Policywise's own waiting period guide describes the trade-off accurately in words, "shorter periods mean higher premiums; longer ones lower costs but require savings", and publishes no prices against it (retrieved 19 August 2026). This section puts numbers on both sides.

The shape of the discount, from one rate card

The cleanest published answer comes from a single rate card, so nothing else varies. SuperLife publishes its disability income rate schedules by waiting period: one month, three months and six months, priced per $1,000 of annual cover, by age and job category. The tables are dated 2 November 2009 and are workplace-scheme rates, so read them for the shape of the relationship rather than the level.

Cost index for a category A job with cover to age 65, with the one-month wait set to 100 at each age, from SuperLife's published male rate schedules for a one-month, three-month and six-month waiting period, all dated 2 November 2009 (retrieved 19 August 2026). The index is our arithmetic on the publisher's rates.

Two findings sit in that grid, and neither is in general circulation.

The saving is almost entirely bought in the first three months. At 35, moving from a one-month to a three-month wait takes the rate down by 59%, from $7.03 to $2.87 per $1,000 of annual cover. Moving on from three months to six months takes it to $2.50, another 13% off what you were still paying (SuperLife rate schedules, dated 2 November 2009, retrieved 19 August 2026). Everything after a three-month stand-down is a large increase in the risk you carry for a small reduction in price.

The discount also shrinks as you age. At 30 a three-month wait costs 40% of the one-month price. At 55 the same choice costs 69%. The longer wait is a young person's discount, because a longer stand-down mostly screens out short claims, and short claims are a bigger share of a young person's risk.

Four weeks against 13 weeks at current prices

Nobody in New Zealand publishes one insurer's price at several waiting periods. What we can do is read two grids that overlap on everything except the wait. MoneyHub publishes annual premiums for a 35-year-old non-smoking male office worker with a $6,250 monthly benefit and a four-week wait (updated 11 June 2026). Policywise publishes fortnightly figures for a 35-year-old non-smoking employed male with a $6,000 monthly benefit and a 13-week wait (retrieved 19 August 2026). Five insurers appear on both.

Below, the MoneyHub figures are scaled to a $6,000 benefit by multiplying by 6.0 and dividing by 6.25, and the Policywise figures are annualised by multiplying by 26. Both are published illustrations only, not quotes, and the comparison crosses two publishers, so treat it as an order of magnitude rather than a measurement.

Source figures: MoneyHub NZ (updated 11 June 2026, retrieved 19 August 2026) and Policywise (retrieved 19 August 2026). Scaling and the final column are our arithmetic.

The spread in that last column matters more than its average. Partners Life charges more than twice as much for the short wait; Fidelity Life charges half as much again. Choosing a four-week wait is a cheap decision at one insurer and an expensive one at another, and no comparison page will tell you which, because each publishes only one waiting period.

What you must hold to bridge the gap

Here is the side of the trade that never gets charted. A waiting period is not a discount. It is a decision to self-fund your own living costs for that period, and the amount is knowable to the dollar.

Cash required to bridge each waiting period on a $6,000 monthly benefit, being the weekly equivalent of that benefit multiplied by the number of weeks. QuoteHub arithmetic. Waiting period options as published by Chubb Life (retrieved 8 September 2026).

A $6,000 monthly benefit corresponds to roughly a $96,000 salary at the standard 75% replacement level, so those figures are the household's own outgoings rather than a theoretical number. If you cannot see $18,000 sitting somewhere you can reach in a fortnight, a 13-week waiting period is not a cheaper policy. It is a policy with a hole in the front of it.

The payback test nobody runs

Take the premium you save by lengthening the wait, and ask how long that saving would take to accumulate the extra cash the longer wait requires. On the five insurers above, moving from a four-week to a 13-week wait increases the cash you must hold by $12,462 and saves between $439 and $772 a year.

Figures derived from MoneyHub NZ (updated 11 June 2026) and Policywise (retrieved 19 August 2026) as set out above.

Run the same test further along the curve on the one publisher who prices both ends and it stops being a close call. On SuperLife's schedule, a 35-year-old in category A with cover to 65 pays $506.16 a year at a one-month wait, $206.64 at three months and $180.00 at six months, for $72,000 of annual cover (rates dated 2 November 2009, retrieved 19 August 2026, arithmetic ours). Stretching from one month to three months saves $299.52 a year against $12,462 of extra exposure, a 42-year payback. Stretching from three months to six months saves $26.64 a year against $18,000 of extra exposure, which is a payback measured in centuries.

So a longer waiting period is not a way to fund a longer waiting period. It only works if the cash already exists. Choose the wait to match the buffer you hold, not the price you want to reach.

Sick leave will not bridge it

Eligible employees in New Zealand are entitled to 10 days of paid sick leave a year (Employment New Zealand, retrieved 19 August 2026). Ten days is two working weeks, so even the shortest commonly offered waiting period leaves an employee with a two-week gap, and that assumes a full untouched entitlement.

Two points change the sum. Some employers carry entitlements over or run extended sick pay schemes, and three months of employer-funded sick pay makes a 13-week wait almost free in real exposure, so check the actual entitlement before choosing. And the self-employed have none of this: the waiting period is funded from working capital at the moment the business stops earning.

What waiting periods are actually offered, and what happens during them

Chubb Life publishes waiting periods of 4, 8, 13, 26, 52 or 104 weeks on its Assurance Extra Income Cover (Chubb Life brochure, retrieved 8 September 2026), and Fidelity Life publishes seven options from two weeks to two years (Fidelity Life, Income protection cover factsheet, retrieved 8 September 2026). The two-week option sits at the steepest part of the price curve and duplicates cover most employees already hold as sick leave.

The waiting period is not always dead time. Chubb's Income Cover pays a bed confinement benefit of one thirtieth of the monthly sum insured for each night, if you are hospitalised or confined to bed for more than three nights in a row, running until the waiting period ends, and its recurrent disablement benefit waives the waiting period if the same illness or injury stops you working again within 12 months (Chubb Life brochure, retrieved 8 September 2026).

If the cause is an accident rather than an illness, ACC weekly compensation may run through the whole waiting period at up to 80% of pre-injury earnings, capped at $2,466.20 gross a week from 1 July 2026 (ACC Newsroom, retrieved 14 August 2026). That is the case for stretching the wait. The case against it is that ACC does not cover illness, and illness is most of what keeps people off work, as the claim causes further down this page show.

Which insurer is cheapest for income cover?

There is no stable answer, and any page that gives you one is not looking at the whole grid. On the Policywise figures, Fidelity Life is lowest of the six for a man on a two-year benefit period at $16.41 a fortnight but fourth of six on cover to age 65, where Partners Life is lowest at $26.28 (retrieved 19 August 2026). On the MoneyHub grid, Fidelity Life is cheapest for the office worker and also cheapest for the tradesperson, while AIA moves from mid-field to dearest when the occupation changes (updated 11 June 2026). The insurer did not change. The setting did.

There is also a reason not to buy on price alone that has nothing to do with features. Income protection is the one policy you may hold on claim for thirty years, and the entity paying it has to be solvent in year thirty. Financial strength ratings for the insurers on this page are published on the Reserve Bank's register of licensed insurers, and they are not identical. Cheapest and strongest are not the same list.

What actually moves the price

Ranked by how much they move the number, on the published grids above:

• Age. Twelvefold between 30 and 55 on the one published age schedule we can find. Nothing else comes close.
• Occupation and employment status. 68% to 108% between an employed office worker and a self-employed tradesperson at the same age.
• Waiting period. Cross-reading the two grids, holding age, sex, non-smoking status and insurer constant, four-week wait against 13-week, the four-week price runs 51% to 113% above the 13-week price on cover to age 65. That comparison crosses two publishers and two benefit amounts, so treat it as an order of magnitude. The arithmetic on both sides of that trade is set out above.
• Benefit period. Cover to 65 costs 59% to 100% more than a two-year benefit on the Policywise male rows. But extending from age 65 to age 70 costs only 1.5% to 7.5% more. That is the cheapest five years of cover on the whole grid, and almost nobody is offered it.
• Sex. 45% to 66% more for a woman on identical cover.
• Agreed value or indemnity. Neither publisher states which basis it priced, which is a real limitation of both grids. What that choice does to your maximum benefit is charted in our agreed value versus indemnity analysis.

Why this cover exists at all: the ACC gap

ACC pays weekly compensation of up to 80% of pre-injury earnings, to a maximum of $2,466.20 gross a week from 1 July 2026 (ACC Newsroom, retrieved 14 August 2026). It pays that for personal injury by accident. It does not cover illness, sickness or conditions related to ageing (ACC, retrieved 14 August 2026).

That distinction is the whole product. Partners Life publishes the causes behind its own Income Cover claims for the year to 31 March 2025: accident and injury 42%, cancer 15%, heart 11%, mental health disorders 10% and musculoskeletal 7%, on $60.7m of Income Cover claims paid (Partners Life, *This is Partners Life 2025* claims brochure, claims assessed 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, retrieved 18 August 2026). Read the other way, 58% of that insurer's income cover claims were caused by something ACC does not pay for (Partners Life claims brochure, retrieved 18 August 2026).

Are the premiums tax-deductible?

Inland Revenue lists "the cost of income protection insurance if the insurance payout would be taxable" as a deductible non-business expense for individuals (Inland Revenue, non-business expenses, retrieved 19 August 2026). The two halves are linked: the deduction follows the taxability of the benefit. Inland Revenue separately states that an income protection payout is generally taxable because it replaces lost income, while amounts under personal sickness policies are generally excluded unless calculated by reference to loss of earnings (Inland Revenue, insurance payouts, retrieved 19 August 2026).

So a policy structured to pay a taxable benefit usually carries a deductible premium, and a policy structured to pay a tax-free benefit does not. Every price on this page is a gross figure with no deduction applied. Which structure you are being quoted is a question worth asking before you compare two numbers, and it is a question for your accountant rather than your adviser. Our income protection tax guide goes further.

Honest limits on every figure here

Nothing above is a quote, and none of it is QuoteHub pricing. Each figure is reproduced from the named publisher beside it, scoped to that publisher's stated profile, frequency and date.

Beyond that, four specific limits:

• The profiles are healthy standard lives. Medical history, BMI, family history, hazardous pastimes and smoking all reprice cover, sometimes well outside these ranges, and sometimes into an exclusion rather than a loading.
• Neither grid states its premium structure. Stepped rates start lower and rise each year; level rates start higher and hold. Over a thirty-year holding period that difference dwarfs the gaps charted here, and a first-year comparison cannot see it.
• The age schedule is old. SuperLife's rate table is dated 2 November 2009 and is a workplace-scheme product. It is used above for the shape of the age curve only, which is why it is presented as an index rather than in dollars.
• The waiting-period comparison crosses two publishers. Different benefit amounts, possibly different occupation definitions. It is directionally sound, not a like-for-like measurement.

The only figure that is actually yours comes from an application, underwriting and an offer of terms.

Getting a real number

If you want the price for your own age, occupation and health rather than a published illustration, that is what a licensed adviser is for. Financial advice is provided by Craig Smith Business Services Limited, trading as Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, a licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931). QuoteHub is a trading name, and we can price this cover across the insurers on our panel. The panel is listed on our disclosure page. We are paid commission by the insurer if you take out cover, which is disclosed to you before you decide.

Start with our income protection calculator to size the benefit, then talk to an adviser about what it actually costs on your file.

References

• Policywise, Best income protection insurance and comparison quotes (retrieved 19 August 2026) - the six-insurer fortnightly grid at age 35, $6,000 monthly benefit, 13-week wait
• MoneyHub NZ, Compare Income Protection Insurance (updated 11 June 2026, retrieved 19 August 2026) - annual premiums, five insurers, office worker against self-employed tradesperson
• SuperLife, Disability income insurance rate table, male, three-month waiting period (dated 2 November 2009, retrieved 19 August 2026) - annual rate per $1,000 of cover by age and job category
• AA Life, Income Protection Cover (retrieved 19 August 2026) - published from-price with full assumptions, underwritten by Asteron Life
• Chubb Life, Assurance Extra Income Cover brochure (retrieved 19 August 2026) - waiting periods, payment terms and benefit caps
• ACC Newsroom, changes to client payments from 1 July 2026 (retrieved 14 August 2026) - maximum weekly compensation
• ACC, injuries we do not cover (retrieved 14 August 2026) - illness is outside the scheme
• Partners Life, This is Partners Life 2025 claims brochure (claims assessed 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, retrieved 18 August 2026) - Income Cover claim causes
• Inland Revenue, non-business expenses and insurance payouts (retrieved 19 August 2026)
• SuperLife, Disability income insurance rate schedules, male, one-month wait and six-month wait (both dated 2 November 2009, retrieved 19 August 2026) - the waiting period index
• Policywise, Income protection waiting period guide (retrieved 19 August 2026)
• Fidelity Life, Income protection cover factsheet (retrieved 8 September 2026) - seven waiting period options and four benefit periods
• Employment New Zealand, sick leave (retrieved 19 August 2026)
• Reserve Bank of New Zealand, register of licensed insurers (retrieved 18 August 2026)

Disclaimer: This article is general information only and does not constitute personalised financial advice. Every price on this page is reproduced from the named third-party publication beside it, is scoped to that publisher's stated profile, frequency and date, and is not a quote from QuoteHub or from any insurer. Insurance is subject to underwriting, and terms, conditions, exclusions and stand-down periods apply. Financial advice is provided by Craig Smith Business Services Limited, trading as Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, a licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931). QuoteHub is a trading name. Henry Smith is a Financial Adviser (FSP1010699).

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