Disability Insurance Calculator: What Would You Actually Take Home?
Your plan says 60%. This shows what really lands in your account, and why.
Enter your salary to see your numbers.
Everything else is filled in with the most common plan terms. You can change them any time.
If you could not work, you would take home
$0
- Take-home today
- $0
- a month, after tax
- On disability
- $0
Why the gap exists
Your monthly gap$0
- Over your career
- The waiting period
- Against your costs
- Typical cost of your own policy
- for a typical individual policy at your income. That uses a common rule of thumb of 1% to 3% of yearly income (Policygenius, 2024). Cover for just your gap usually costs less. A quote gives you the real price. Get a quote. Prices depend on your age, job and health.
What to ask HR
Watch out for
- Most group plans pay for your own job for the first 24 months only. After that they pay only if you cannot do any job at all. See what changes at month 24.
- If Social Security approves you for SSDI, your group plan cuts its payment by the same amount. Your total stays about the same. How SSDI and private cover fit together.
- If you buy your own policy, check how it defines disability. An own-occupation definition pays when you cannot do your own job, even if you could do another one. What own-occupation cover means.
How this calculator works
It follows the same steps a benefits letter and a tax return would. Every tax figure comes from a public 2026 table, listed below.
- Take-home today
- Salary plus bonus, minus federal income tax, state income tax, Social Security and Medicare. It uses the standard deduction for how you file.
- What the plan pays
- Your base salary divided by 12, times the plan percentage, up to the monthly maximum. Bonus and commission are left out unless you tick the box, because most group plans leave them out.
- Tax on the benefit
- If your employer pays the premium, or you pay it before tax, the benefit is taxed as income. We tax it with the same federal and state tables. If you pay with after-tax money, the benefit is tax-free. Social Security and Medicare tax are not charged on it.
- Your own policy
- Any monthly benefit from a policy you bought yourself is added in full, as tax-free money.
- Social Security
- SSDI is not added. Group plans cut their payment by any SSDI award, so the total from both stays about the same.
- The gap
- Take-home today minus take-home on disability. It never goes below zero. The career figure multiplies it by the months left to age 65, in today's dollars.
- Typical policy cost
- A rule of thumb that a typical individual policy costs 1% to 3% of yearly income, from Policygenius rates by income (April 2024). Cover for just your gap usually costs less. It is not a quote.
What it leaves out
Some things on a real pay slip are not in the maths. These are state disability payroll deductions (in states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Hawaii and Washington), local city taxes, 401(k) and health premiums, and state tax credits or phase-outs. Because of this, your take-home and your gap may be slightly overstated. Married filing jointly uses only your income, so a working spouse's pay would change the tax and shrink the gap. Self-employment tax is not included either, so take-home and the gap are overstated for self-employed people. Treat the result as a close estimate, not your exact pay.
Where the tax figures come from
- IRS 2026 brackets and standard deduction
- SSA 2026 Social Security wage base
- IRS Additional Medicare Tax thresholds
- Tax Foundation state income tax rates, 2026
Figures were checked on 18 October 2026.
Three real-world examples
Each one uses the same maths as the calculator above. Load any of them to see the full breakdown.
A $65,000 hospital nurse in Ohio, employer pays
- Filing
- Single, age 34
- Plan
- 60%, $6,000 cap
She takes home about $4,450 a month today. Her plan pays $3,250 before tax. The cap never comes into it. Because her employer pays the premium, the benefit is taxed, which costs her $233 a month.
She would keep $3,017, or 68% of her pay today. That is a gap of $1,433 every month.
A $140,000 engineer with a $20,000 bonus and a $6,000 cap
- Filing
- Married, Texas, age 38
- Plan
- 60%, $6,000 cap
He takes home about $10,852 a month. The plan ignores his bonus, which costs $1,000 a month of cover. Then the cap cuts another $1,000, so the plan stops at $6,000.
After $357 of tax he keeps $5,643. That is just 52% of his pay today, a gap of $5,208 a month.
A $280,000 doctor in Illinois with a $10,000 cap
- Filing
- Married, age 36
- Plan
- 60%, $10,000 cap
She takes home about $17,166 a month. Sixty percent of her salary would be $14,000, but the cap cuts $4,000 of that. The plan pays $10,000 before tax.
Tax takes $1,308, leaving $8,692. That is 51% of her pay today, a gap of $8,474 a month. This is why doctors often buy their own cover on top.
Estimates only, not tax or insurance advice. Everything is worked out in your browser. We never send or store what you enter.