The gap between salary and disability insurance

What stops, and when

In case of illness the employer owes the salary for a limited period, growing with seniority under the Bern, Zurich or Basel scales. In a first year of service that is counted in weeks, not months.

Disability insurance pays a pension only after lasting incapacity, and rarely before twelve months. Its logic is rehabilitation first: the pension comes afterwards, if it comes.

Between the end of the employer’s obligation and the first disability pension, nothing happens automatically. That is the gap daily allowance insurance fills — and it is not compulsory.

Employed: check before you need it

• ✓Look at your employment contract or the collective agreement: many employers hold a collective daily allowance policy, many do not.
• ✓If it exists, note the waiting period and the share of salary insured — 80 % for 720 days is common, but nothing requires it.
• ✓When you leave the company, that cover stops. A right to transfer into an individual policy often exists, with a short deadline: that is the clause to ask about on your last day, not three months later.

Self-employed: it is the only net

A self-employed person has neither an employer paying the salary nor collective cover. Without daily allowances, a stop in work is a stop in income, the same day.

The price depends mainly on two choices: the waiting period — 30, 60 or 90 days — and the sum insured. A longer waiting period cuts the premium sharply, provided you can bridge it. It is a trade-off between cash and premium, not between cover and price.