Individual disability insurance for a healthy 35-year-old costs $238 to $657 a month for a man and $395 to $1,111 a month for a woman at $10,000 a month of benefit, in Seaworthy's 2026 quote study across the five major carriers we place, and where a given professional lands inside those ranges is decided by the occupation class the carrier assigns before any other choice is made.
The "about 1 to 3 percent of income" answer that circulates is true for most male quotes and for a woman in the top office class, and it runs low for the more expensive surgeon, dentist, and CRNA quotes and for most women outside the top office class.
The study ran each carrier's illustration on the same hypothetical applicant, a 35-year-old non-smoker in Texas earning $220,000 a year, for $10,000 a month with a 90-day elimination period, benefits to age 65, a true own-occupation definition, and every optional rider, with no discounts, once as a man and once as a woman at each occupation class the carrier uses, and then varied age, benefit amount, and issue state one at a time on the male profile.
The figures are illustrated standard rates before underwriting, which is where a real premium moves, since about 28 percent of the policies we place carry an exclusion or a rating from underwriting (2026 book audit).
How much does disability insurance cost?
At $10,000 a month of coverage, a man in a carrier's top office class, the tier that holds attorneys and CPAs, pays $238 to $322 a month across the five carriers, and a woman in the same class $395 to $535. A standard office class, one tier down, runs $372 to $456 and $637 to $681, and the full office ladder down to 3A, with where each carrier classes tech, finance, and consulting roles, is on our white-collar carrier comparison.
Internal medicine and family medicine physicians pay $345 to $374 and $527 to $606, general surgeons $418 to $573 and $653 to $919, general dentists $496 to $657 and $768 to $1,111, and CRNAs $432 to $636 and $675 to $1,024 across the four carriers that quoted a CRNA class. On an annual-pay basis the male set runs from $2,852 to $7,508 a year.
| Occupation group, age 35, $10,000 a month, Texas, fully loaded | Male applicant | Female applicant |
|---|---|---|
| Top office class (attorneys, CPAs) | $238 to $322 | $395 to $535 |
| Standard office class | $372 to $456 | $637 to $681 |
| Internal medicine, family medicine | $345 to $374 | $527 to $606 |
| General surgery | $418 to $573 | $653 to $919 |
| General dentistry | $496 to $657 | $768 to $1,111 |
| CRNAs (four carriers) | $432 to $636 | $675 to $1,024 |
Measured monthly premiums from the 2026 illustrations, sticker price before any discount, each range spanning the cheapest to the most expensive carrier for that group. The occupation groups use the class each carrier assigns that profession in its mid-2026 producer guide, so a range compares five different class codes that happen to hold the same profession. The CRNA row spans four carriers because the fifth carrier's CRNA class was not in the study.
Measured against the study's $220,000 income, those sticker prices run from 1.3 percent of income for a man in the top office class to 3.6 percent for a male general dentist, and from 2.2 to 6.1 percent for a woman across the same groups, on the monthly rate times twelve. That is where the familiar 1 to 3 percent figure comes from and where it stops. Discounts pull a man's number down by 10 to 20 percent, and the specialty pages linked below carry the discounted and no-COLA versions of each range.
What sets your premium?
Occupation class
Class is the widest lever on the page. At the same carrier, general dentistry priced 1.9 to 2.4 times the top office class for identical coverage, general surgery 1.3 to 2.2 times, and a standard office class 1.3 to 1.7 times, so the profession matters more than any rider or waiting-period choice a buyer can make.
The carriers also disagree with each other about where a profession sits, which is why every row of the table is a range. The cheapest carrier for an internist was a middle carrier for a surgeon in the study and the most expensive carrier for a general dentist was not the most expensive for a surgeon.
Class sets the rate table and which riders and limits are open to you. It does not decide a claim, which turns on the policy's definition of disability and your real duties at the time you become disabled.
Age at application
The same $10,000 of coverage cost 14 to 35 percent more at 35 than at 28 and 24 to 58 percent more at 45 than at 35 at the same carrier, on the male profile, so a 45-year-old pays 48 to 103 percent more than a 28-year-old for the same policy and pays it for fewer years. A man in the top office class runs $200 to $283 a month at 28, $238 to $322 at 35, and $298 to $431 at 45, and a male general dentist $378 to $572, $496 to $657, and $769 to $1,020 at the same three ages.
The rate locks at issue on a non-cancelable policy, so the age you buy at is the age you pay for until 65. The underlying risk is not small. Per SSA's published figures, "Studies show that a 20-year-old worker has a 1-in-4 chance of developing a disability before reaching full retirement age."
Age-banded group plans make the same point from the other direction. Association coverage that looks inexpensive in your 30s typically reprices upward every few years. In the AANA plan that so many of the CRNAs we quote already hold, the monthly premium in the early 50s commonly runs roughly 3 to 4.5 times the premium in the 30s for the same benefit on the plan's published rate schedule (the comparison is on our AANA plan analysis), while an individually owned non-cancelable policy locks its rate at issue.
What the age ladder looks like during training, with the resident discounts applied, is on our page on what medical residents pay.
Health at application
Health is the input the study could not measure, because every illustration assumed a clean file at standard rates, and it is the input that most often moves a real premium off the illustrated rate. About 28 percent of the policies we place carry an exclusion or a rating from underwriting, per our 2026 book audit, and the median age at issue across the physicians in our book was 36 in the same audit.
An exclusion narrows what the policy covers and a rating raises the premium, both attach on the basis of the medical record at application, and in our experience they can often be reconsidered about two years after issue once a clean interval passes. Tobacco is the one health input a buyer can change, since it typically carries a surcharge that stopping for a sustained period can remove, with the required interval varying by carrier. Assuming there is time to wait is one of the disability insurance myths that cost high earners the most.
Sex
Every one of the five carriers priced the female applicant 43 to 76 percent above the male applicant for identical coverage at the same class, which is why the occupation table is quoted for both. The gap varies by carrier by more than thirty points, so which carrier gets quoted matters more to a woman than to a man.
Some multi-life and employer-sponsored arrangements price both sexes on one rate table and erase the difference outright, which makes a group case at a hospital, firm, or practice worth quoting beside the individual rates for any woman who has access to one.
Monthly benefit amount
Each extra $1,000 of monthly benefit costs a 35-year-old man $22 to $65 a month depending on class, measured between each carrier's own $5,000 and $15,000 illustrations, from $22 to $31 in the top office class to $49 to $65 in general dentistry. The price per dollar drifts down as the policy grows, since $15,000 of benefit cost less than 1.5 times the $10,000 premium at every carrier, while the policy fee and rider minimums weigh on a small policy the same as on a large one.
Carriers cap the benefit from documented income through issue and participation limits, and at the carriers we place that cap is generally a declining share of income, which is covered in how much disability insurance you need.
Elimination period
On the one carrier that prints a full waiting-period grid on its illustrations, run at a top office class on the male profile, a 180-day elimination period cost 15 percent less than the 90-day standard, 365 days cost 30 percent less, and 60 days cost 60 percent more.
Ninety days is the structure most of the professionals we place buy, and the 180-day option is the meaningful saving for anyone whose cash reserve or employer sick leave already covers the first six months. Other carriers price the step on their own tables, so read the grid as the shape of the trade at one carrier rather than a market figure.
Benefit period
Benefits to age 65 paired with a 90-day elimination period is the structure the study priced and the one most of the policies we place carry. Shorter benefit periods cost less, and the same carrier grid that prices waiting periods shows a five-year benefit period at roughly half the to-65 premium, but a five-year policy stops paying in year six of a claim that may run to retirement, which for a younger professional leaves decades of earning capacity exposed to save roughly half the premium.
Riders
The cost of living adjustment rider runs 9 to 18 percent of total premium across the six groups in the study, residual disability 10 to 17 percent, and catastrophic coverage 4 to 13 percent, while the benefit increase riders priced at zero dollars everywhere they appeared. Residual pays when a disability cuts your income rather than stopping it, and it is on most of the policies we place.
COLA raises the benefit each year during a long claim, and a buyer in their 30s has three decades of inflation to think about. The future increase option locks insurability so coverage can grow with income without new medical underwriting, and at zero cost it is the cheapest line on the illustration.
Catastrophic coverage is situational, and the amount behind its price differs by carrier. The full list is in our guide to disability insurance riders.
Issue state
New York priced identical coverage 0 to 15 percent above Texas at the four carriers selling the same product there, and California 8 to 29 percent above Texas at the three carriers selling the same product there on the office and non-procedural medical classes, after the mental and nervous limitation each of the three compared carriers attaches in California.
A man in the top office class quoted $238 to $322 in Texas is quoted $257 to $369 in New York and $278 to $413 in California, and an internist $351 to $399 and $394 to $467. Two carriers sell a structurally different policy in California and one of them does the same in New York, so those quotes are left out of the state comparison instead of being set against a different contract.
Discounts
Most of the policies we place carry an association, multi-life, or employer discount of 10 to 20 percent depending on carrier, which at the study's $10,000 configuration is worth roughly $30 to $50 a month to a man in the top office class and roughly $55 to $115 a month to a male general dentist, applied carrier by carrier, so those figures do not come from the range endpoints.
Eligibility is carrier-specific and situational, so the sticker prices on this page are the honest starting point and the discount gets confirmed at quote time. Which discounts exist and who qualifies is covered on our disability insurance discounts page.
How does cost vary by profession?
The table above is the summary, and each occupation group has its own page with the discounted and no-COLA versions of the ranges, the benefit-level ladder, and the class detail behind the numbers. Dentists are on our page on what dentists pay, physicians by specialty group on what physicians pay, surgeons across the surgical specialties on what surgeons pay, medical residents and the $1,000-a-month lock-in policy on what residents pay, and CRNAs, with the placed-book figures alongside the illustrations, on our CRNA disability insurance cost page.
Office-based technology roles generally sit in or one step below the top office class, depending on the carrier, and our tech disability insurance cost page covers that audience.
Why does buying earlier cost less?
Because the two largest inputs move in one direction only. The age ladder above prices the visible half, 48 to 103 percent more at 45 than at 28 for the same coverage at the same carrier. The other half is the medical record, which is what the 28 percent exclusion-and-rating figure measures, and which gets longer every year.
A buyer at 28 hands underwriting a short chart and pays the lowest rate on the ladder, while a buyer at 45 hands it seventeen more years of history and pays the rate at the top. The case for timing, in full, is on our page about when to buy disability insurance.
How we approach cost
We are an independent brokerage paid by carrier commission rather than a client fee, so we compare all five majors on contract language and price together. The coverage the situation calls for gets defined first, the definition of disability, the benefit period, the benefit amount, and the riders that matter for the profession, and then the carrier that delivers that structure at the best price gets placed.
The spreads in the table, 8 to 9 percent between carriers for an internist and 37 percent for a surgeon on the male profile, are why the comparison itself is the most effective cost lever we know of.
What should you compare before you buy?
Run one coverage specification across every carrier. Confirm the definition of disability, the occupation class each carrier assigns you, the benefit amount and how it was sized to your income, the elimination and benefit periods, and the exact rider package, then compare the fully loaded premium. A quote that looks cheap on a thin base policy is not comparable to a quote on the coverage you need.
How the study was run, and what it can't tell you
Every figure on this page comes from the 2026 illustration study our team ran across Guardian, Principal, MassMutual, The Standard, and Ameritas, the five carriers we place. The baseline is a 35-year-old non-smoker in Texas earning $220,000 a year, $10,000 a month of benefit, a 90-day elimination period, benefits to age 65, a true own-occupation definition, and every optional rider, with no discounts, quoted once as a man and once as a woman at each occupation class the carrier uses.
The male profile was then re-quoted at 28 and 45, at $5,000 and $15,000 of benefit, and as a California and a New York issue, one change at a time, where the carrier's product and class allowed it. The six occupation groups on this page use the class each carrier assigns that profession in its mid-2026 producer guide, which means each range spans five different class codes, and the CRNA group spans four carriers because the fifth carrier's CRNA class was not illustrated.
Most figures on this page are read straight off an illustration. The per-$1,000 cost is each carrier's own slope between its $5,000 and $15,000 illustrations (between $5,000 and $10,000 at the one CRNA class that caps at $10,000), the waiting-period and benefit-period percentages come from the one carrier whose illustrations price them side by side, and the discount value is the 10 to 20 percent association, multi-life, or employer discount at the level our placements most commonly reach, stated as a rounded approximation on purpose.
The rider shares are the itemized premiums on each illustration, with the catastrophic rider set at the largest amount each carrier's software allows alongside its no-cost benefit increase rider. Monthly figures are the carriers' monthly-pay rates, which at four of the five carry a charge for paying in installments, so the annual figures do not divide to the monthly ones exactly. The surgical and CRNA groups include quotes that would carry a required mental and nervous limitation on a real file, which is disclosed on those groups' own pages.
None of this is a quote. The rates are filed rates that change, the applicant is hypothetical, and the underwriting that decides a real offer has not happened. We plan to re-run the study every six to twelve months.
If you want to see how the five carriers price your situation, start with a quote comparison across all five. To go deeper, read how to size coverage in how much disability insurance you need, why when to buy is itself a cost decision, and the full tax math in our disability insurance tax guide. More of the cost and structure guides are indexed on our education page, and the most common pricing questions are answered on our disability insurance FAQ.