Think about everything that runs because you make it run.
School fees. EMIs. Household expenses. Your parents’ medication. Your team’s salaries. Your business, if you have one.
Now think about what happens to all of it if you couldn’t work for three months. Not because you quit. Not because you chose to stop. Because something happened — a bad fall, surgery, a health event — and your body said not yet.
This is the gap that tends to hit hardest. Not a catastrophic event. A difficult few months. The kind where the bills don’t pause, the EMIs don’t pause, and the people who depend on you keep needing things — while your income does pause.
India has no mandatory income replacement system for working women. No statutory sick pay beyond whatever your employer chooses to provide. No automatic mechanism that steps in when you can’t.
Which means the plan, in most cases, is you. And when you can’t show up — there is no plan.
The exposure varies depending on how you work.
If you’re employed: Your employer may continue paying you during a short illness. Most corporate sick leave policies cover 7 to 21 days. After that — it depends on your company’s policy, your leave balance, and whether HR is sympathetic. A three-month recovery from surgery? Most salaried women would exhaust their sick leave within weeks. The rest comes out of their own pocket or their family’s.
If you’re self-employed or a founder: There is no employer. No sick leave. No safety net that someone else set up for you. If you’re not working, nothing is coming in. Every day of recovery is a day your business is running on momentum — or not running at all.
If you work independently: No employer cover. A client dispute, a bad month, a health event — all of it lands entirely on you. The gap is yours to manage.
When we ask women what would carry them through a three-month income gap, two answers come up most often.
My savings. This works — if the savings exist, if they’re liquid, and if the gap doesn’t extend beyond what’s there. The problem: most people’s savings aren’t structured for this. They’re earmarked for something else — a home, a child’s education, retirement. Using them for a health recovery means rebuilding from scratch afterwards.
My spouse or family. This works — if your spouse is earning, if the relationship is stable, and if you’re comfortable with the financial dependency that comes with it. Many women are not. And even those who are find the reality of it different from the idea of it.
Calculate your monthly floor. Add up your fixed obligations — EMIs, rent, school fees, parent support, insurance premiums — plus your variable essentials: groceries, household, medications.
That’s the minimum you need coming in every month for your life not to fracture.
Now ask: how many months of that do you have liquid and accessible right now, separate from everything else you’re saving for?
If the answer is less than three — that’s the gap to work on first. A dedicated recovery fund. Three months of your monthly floor. Separate from your emergency fund. Not touched for anything else.
A personal accident policy with an income replacement component is the product built for this situation. Most people know PA policies as something that pays a lump sum if you’re permanently disabled. What fewer people know: many PA policies include a temporary total disablement benefit — a weekly or monthly payment that replaces a portion of your income while you’re recovering.
This is critically different from a policy that only pays your hospitalisation bills. The hospital bill is one-time. The income gap is every month.
What to look for:
The plan doesn’t have to be you alone. That’s what this is about. Building a structure underneath your strength — so you have the freedom to keep growing, keep building, keep showing up on your own terms.
We’re thinking about building something specific for this situation.
Would a product that replaces up to 50% of your monthly income for up to 6 months — if you’re unable to work — be useful to you?
What would feel like a fair monthly cost for Rs 50,000/month income cover?
We read every response.