What Employers Need to Know About Sickness Absence and Long-Term Disability Trends

Most employers accept that people get sick. What's harder to plan for is when that absence becomes extended, lasting weeks or months rather than a few days, and the knock-on effects that follow. For many businesses, a single long-term absence can create real operational and financial strain, particularly when there's no protection in place to manage it.

The picture across the UK right now makes this worth thinking about carefully.

The CIPD's Health and Wellbeing at Work 2025 report found that UK employees took an average of 9.4 sick days per year, up from 7.8 days in 2023 and 5.8 days in 2022. That's a significant upward trend over a short period.

Poor mental health is now the leading cause of long-term absence, cited by 41% of organisations in their top three causes. Stress features as a major driver of both short and long-term absence, with 64% of organisations reporting stress-related absence among their workforce.

The ONS separately reported that nearly 2.8 million people were economically inactive due to long-term sickness at the peak in early 2024. While that figure has edged back slightly, it remains substantially higher than pre-pandemic levels.

None of this means your business is about to face a crisis. But it does mean the probability of a long-term absence affecting your team at some point is higher than it was, and the consequences of not being prepared are more significant than many employers realise.

The first few weeks of an absence are typically manageable. Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) covers the minimum, and most businesses have at least an informal approach to short-term absence. The problems tend to start at the point where SSP ends and there's nothing further in place.

For the employee, the financial pressure at that stage can be significant. Without continued income, many people face difficult decisions at precisely the point when they should be focusing on recovery. That stress tends to slow things down, not speed them up.

For the employer, the challenges are different but equally real. Cover needs organising. Roles can't always wait. And the relationship with that employee, however much goodwill exists, becomes harder to manage over time without structure around it.

Group Income Protection Insurance addresses this directly. It provides a replacement income for the employer to use to pay employees who are unable to work due to long-term illness or injury, typically kicking in once employer sick pay ends. The employer makes the claim; the insurer pays out, allowing salary payments to continue for the employee without the cost falling entirely on the business.

There's a common assumption that income protection is simply a financial product, that the value is in the payout. That's true, but it doesn't capture the full picture.

Most group income protection policies now include a range of additional support services: access to rehabilitation, physiotherapy, occupational health guidance, and early intervention programmes designed to help employees return to work more quickly. Many also provide support for line managers navigating a long-term absence, which is often where the real difficulty lies.

Mental health is a good example. An employee on long-term leave for depression or anxiety needs a carefully managed approach to returning to work. Too fast and the risk of relapse goes up. Too slow and the connection to the business weakens. Having access to proper clinical and occupational support, included within the insurance policy, makes that process significantly more manageable.

It's worth dwelling on the mental health dimension specifically, because it's where the biggest shift has occurred. A decade ago, musculoskeletal problems dominated long-term absence statistics. Mental ill health was present but secondary.

That's no longer the case. Mental ill health is now the single biggest driver of long-term absence according to the CIPD's 2025 data, and it shows no clear sign of reversing. Stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout feature regularly in absence records across almost every sector and role type.

A business that still thinks of income protection as cover for physical illness only is looking at half the picture. Modern group income protection schemes cover mental health conditions on the same basis as physical ones. For many employees, that's the cover that's most likely to matter.

There's also a broader signal here. Offering a benefit that explicitly covers mental health tells your workforce something about how seriously you take it, not as a checkbox exercise, but as a genuine commitment. That matters for recruitment and retention as much as it matters for the individual who needs it. If you're thinking about how benefits contribute to your wider employer proposition, our piece on why employee benefits matter for recruitment and retention covers that in more detail.

If you don't currently have group income protection in place, the starting question is straightforward: what happens if a key member of your team is unable to work for six months or more? Do you have a plan for that, financially and operationally?

If you do have a policy in place, it's worth reviewing it. Does it reflect your current workforce? Is the deferred period still appropriate? Does it include the rehabilitation and support services that make a real difference to outcomes? Are your line managers aware of what the policy covers and how to use it?

These aren't complicated questions, but they're ones most businesses don't get around to asking until they need the answer.

HWWA Consulting can help you work through them. As an independent consultancy, we review the whole market to find cover that fits your business and your budget, and we're there when you need to make a claim, not just when you take the policy out. You might also find it useful to read about our broader approach to employee benefits management and the support we provide once a benefits package is in place.

Book a free benefits review and find out where your current arrangements stand.