Russell Hutchinson, of Quality Product Research, which runs QuoteMonster, said it had been noticeable for the past couple of years that fewer people were taking four-week wait periods and most opted for 13.

“It reduces the cost quite a lot. It’s the most significant thing in terms of cost reduction that you can do with income protection, short of reducing the benefit term.”

It worked for clients who had a financial buffer, he said. Many could get through 13 weeks with a combination of sick leave and emergency funds.

About 40% of quotes were done on the basis of a 13-week wait, he said.

While income protection rates were steady, more people were opting for mortgage protection products, Hutchinson said. These are often used as a base level of cover for expenses, and topped up with income protection, because mortgage cover is not offset by ACC.

That top-up model was good from an advice perspective, too, he said, because if a client decided they could no longer afford the full cover, the could drop back to just the mortgage protection.

There was 40% more mortgage protection cover quoted in 2017 than in 2016, Hutchinson said. “We’re routinely seeing over 1200 cases quoted a month. The average annual premium quoted for income protection is just over $1600 per year, for mortgage protection that figure is just over $800 per year.”

It was still only quoted half as much as health insurance and a third as much as trauma insurance, he said.

“Which is reflected in the level of ownership in society as a whole – which is low. Yet in figures provided to us by consulting actuaries, we’re told that in a typical working life one in four couples will experience a period of six months or more during which a person is unable to work due to disability.”