Disability Income Insurance

Disabilities that affect someone’s ability to work can be a serious issue for businesses and organizations of all sizes. Whether you’re a business owner or a benefits manager, disability income (DI) insurance can help replace a portion of your employees' income if they become too sick or injured to work for an extended period of time. Businesses can use DI as an effective planning tool to mitigate risk. Offering DI can also help you to recruit and retain employees.

Features and benefits

Income protection for employees

If you offer group long-term disability benefits, the coverage may only protect about half of an employee’s net monthly income. You can help your employees reduce the coverage gap by making supplemental individual DI insurance policies available to them.1 By offering this valuable coverage as a voluntary benefit, your employees can have added protection to help them meet their financial obligations during a disability, at little or no cost to the business. MassMutual offers different DI products to meet the needs of both small and large businesses and organizations. Depending on your company’s needs, a DI offering can be either voluntary or employer-paid, and might be eligible for simplified underwriting. Regardless of the design, your employees can enjoy discounted premiums and policy portability.
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Retirement protection for employees

Your employees have worked hard to save for retirement, and you can offer a way to help them protect the nest eggs they have built. A major derailer for many people approaching retirement can occur if they become too sick or hurt to work, and are forced to tap into their retirement savings to meet the expenses of everyday life. A disability income policy can not only replace a portion of one’s income when a disability occurs, but it can also be designed to help your employees continue saving for retirement2 if they become too sick or hurt to work for an extended period of time. In this way, offering DI policies can help your business attract talent and build loyalty.
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Protect your business and select employees

For a small business, a key employee’s disability can impact the company’s bottom line. However, if you choose to continue paying that employee’s salary without having a pre-existing plan in place, tax reporting issues may arise as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would generally not recognize those payments as a business expense. A Qualified Sick Pay Plan (QSPP), which is recognized by the IRS and can be funded with DI, sets company policy before a disability occurs.3 Funding a QSPP with DI, you transfer the risk of a portion of that employee’s salary to MassMutual. The owner can choose which employees will be included in a QSPP, making it ideal for family businesses looking to offer disability income protection for non-owner family members.
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Fund a buy-sell agreement

If your business has multiple owners, you can use a Disability Buy-Sell insurance policy to fund a buy-out option if one partner becomes disabled, allowing for an orderly transition of ownership. Additionally, this allows the insurance carrier to serve as an objective third party to determine whether a disability has occurred. If you’re in a partnership that has an existing buy-sell agreement, it’s important that you review the agreement to ensure that disabilities are addressed and funded.
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Business overhead expense (BOE) protection

BOE disability insurance helps “keep the lights on” if you (the insured) become disabled and can’t work for an extended period. It provides a monthly benefit to reimburse your share of the business expenses such as rent, utilities, and payroll, so the business can continue running during your recovery.
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Business loan protection

Adding a Business Loan Protection Rider4,5 to a BOE insurance policy can help protect your ability to continue making your loan payments during periods of eligible total disability. It’s designed to help protect cash flow by providing a monthly benefit to reimburse payments for the portion of business loan debt due or paid (whichever is less) for the business associated with the policy.

By helping safeguard against missed payments, this rider can help keep the business stable and give you one less thing to worry about during recovery.

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Customizable coverage

Individual disability income insurance and business overhead expense disability insurance policies may be customizable, so you can prepare for the future. For example, you may be able to choose to add a rider6 to your policy that allows your coverage to grow as your salary increases or your business expenses increase.

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What is the process for getting a disability income insurance policy?

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When you work with a financial professional, you can expect:

    • Analyze

    • During your initial phone call, your financial professional will ask you questions to understand your financial goals and objectives.

    • Recommend

    • After looking at your entire financial picture, your financial professional will provide you with suggestions to help reduce the gaps so you can choose the products best suited for your situation.

    • Purchase

    • If you're satisfied with their recommendations, they work with you to secure the products and services to help ensure your financial future. This may require a medical exam. Learn more about our Underwriting Practices

    • Review

    • Your financial professional can work with you over time through periodic reviews to help you monitor the strategies in place, and their capacity to continuously meet your goals.

Contact a financial professional

Why MassMutual

since

1851

we've been helping people secure their financial future and protect the ones they love

Nearly

$1.1T

of life insurance protection in force as of 12/31/257

Listed

#102

on the FORTUNE 500© list8

delivered

$10.3B

insurance and annuity benefits paid to policyowners and other customers in 2025

What's behind MassMutual's financial strength

Workplace Solutions

Workplace Solutions

Employee Benefits for All Shapes and Sizes

MassMutual offers a comprehensive suite of employee and executive benefit solutions that includes life insurance, disability income insurance and retirement plan services. Learn how our workplace benefit solutions can help your employees secure their financial future and protect the ones they love.

Explore Workplace Solutions

NOT FOR USE IN NEW MEXICO

1 This supplemental individual disability income insurance does not coordinate with your group long term disability coverage. Claim decisions are rendered independent of each other.

2 RetireGuard® can help replace an amount equal to the retirement plan contributions (including both the employee’s and the employer’s contributions) that would have been made to a client’s eligible defined contribution plan if he/she had not become disabled. It is not a retirement plan, nor a substitute for one.

3 A Qualified Sick Pay Plan requires careful planning and sound advice to make it useful and advantageous to you, your company, and your employees. As part of your planning, you will need to consider the applicability of various employment-related laws (e.g., ADEA, ERISA, ADA). For further information, consult your attorney and other advisors.

4 Business Loan Protection Rider coverage is available for an additional cost. Business Loan Protection Rider coverage is not available in CA, MT, and NY.

5 Business Loan Protection Rider coverage is not a form of Credit Insurance. Reimbursable benefits are not paid directly to the Lender, may not equal the loan’s minimum payment(s) required, and do not guarantee against loan default. MassMutual is not a party to any loan agreement between the Insured and the Lender.

6 Riders are available at an additional cost except the Automatic Benefit Increase Rider and the Benefit Increase Rider which are available at no additional cost. Riders are subject to state availability.

7 These are consolidated results of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company and its U.S.-domiciled life insurance subsidiaries: C.M. Life Insurance Company, MML Bay State Life Insurance Company, and MassMutual Ascend, as well as key subsidiaries, as of December 31, 2025.

8 From FORTUNE. ©2026 FORTUNE Media IP Limited. All rights reserved. FORTUNE 500 (June 2025) is a registered trademark of FORTUNE Media IP Limited and is used under license. FORTUNE is not affiliated with, and does not endorse products or services of MassMutual.

Note: There may be implications under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA") depending on how disability income insurance policies are made available to the employees and whether such an arrangement constitutes an "employee benefit plan" under ERISA. Employers should consult their own tax and legal advisors for further information on potential ERISA implications.

The information provided is not written or intended as specific tax or legal advice. MassMutual, its employees, and representatives are not authorized to give tax or legal advice. Individuals are encouraged to seek advice from their own tax or legal counsel.

Policies have exclusions and limitations, and state variations will apply. For costs and complete details of coverage call your agent or MassMutual at 1-800-272-2216 for a referral to an agent.

Disability Income insurance:
Radius Choice (policy form XLIS-RC-15 et al., XLIS-RC-16(FL) and ICC15-XLIS-RC in certain states including North Carolina); MaxElect (policy form XLS-ME-04 in CT, DC, DE, FL, MT, ND, and SD; policy form XLS-ME-13 et al. and ICC13XLSME in North Carolina and all other states except California); RetireGuard (policy form XLIS-RC-15 et al with EDI-10-RC, ICC15-XLIS-RC with ICC15-EDI-10-RC in certain states including North Carolina and XL-GS-92 with EDI-10); and (policy form XLS-ME-13 with EDI-10-2013 and ICC13XLSME with ICC13EDI10 in certain states including North Carolina); and Radius (policy form XL-GS-92 in California), are issued by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Springfield, MA 01111-0001.

Disability Buy-Sell insurance (policy form Bsell-00 and Bsell-00(NC) in North Carolina) is issued by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Springfield MA 01111-0001.

Business Overhead Expense disability insurance (policy forms BOE-I-92 in CA; BOE-01 in MT; BOE-9200 in NY; and IS-BOE-24 et al., and ICC24-IS-BOE in certain states including North Carolina) are issued by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Springfield, MA 01111-0001.

New York Policies: These policies provide disability insurance only. They do NOT provide basic hospital, basic medical, or major medical insurance as defined by the New York State Insurance Department.
– The expected benefit ratio of Radius Choice (RC) and RC RetireGuard policies are 51.0 percent.
– The expected benefit ratio of MaxElect (ME) and ME-13 RetireGuard policies are 61 percent.
– The expected benefit ratio of a Disability Buy-Sell insurance policy is 55 percent.
– The expected benefit ratio of a Business Overhead Expense disability insurance policy is 52.2 percent.

These ratios are the portion of future premiums which the company expects to return as benefits, when averaged over all the people with these policies.