Anyone Worried?

[ladymuck]

How? It only pays out if I’m incapacitated for medical reasons.

Are there policies that pay out for lack of work? Premiums must be astronomical.

There's short term income protection insurances that will only pay out for, say 12-18 months. Long term income protection could potentially be for life if the condition is serious enough. It's possible to have both so the period you have to wait for LT insurance is covered by the ST one, for example.

[jamesbrown]

There's short term income protection insurances

Check the T&Cs of those very carefully. I wouldn't be surprised if contractors are pretty much disqualified by the T&Cs, but they'll certainly accept your premium...

[DimPrawn]

Check the T&Cs of those very carefully. I wouldn't be surprised if contractors are pretty much disqualified by the T&Cs, but they'll certainly accept your premium...

Total waste of money IMHO. May as well insure your hands incase they get chopped off and you cannot work.

They never pay out.

[Lance]

Check the T&Cs of those very carefully. I wouldn't be surprised if contractors are pretty much disqualified by the T&Cs, but they'll certainly accept your premium...

Some include salary and dividends. Some don’t.
This is the sort of product I’d pay for advise before purchasing.

[ladymuck]

I was just saying they exist in answer to the question. Some do accept the self-employed and contractor, others don't. Some pay up to a fixed maximum, others a percentage of your income.

[dogzilla]

I feel like a lot of people should be more worried than they are but I'm not too worried myself. I paid of my mortgage and my wife works in the NHS so she can cover the bills
Also I feel like my skill set is fairly in demand and isn't going anywhere, do lots of cloud security assurance, infrastructure + application automation, ci/cd, shed loads of kubernetes, terraform, kafka, data analytics....

[WTFH]

I remember when contractors used to post on here. We all had war chests of 6 months minimum, and if you'd been contracting more than about 5 years, you had at least 12 months stashed away.
You also knew your burn rate and what could be dropped.

It now seems like it's a bunch of permies who want everything done for them. Whatever happened to contractor mentality? It's not surprising that IR35 has been brought in when you read the full time employee attitude on here!

[SussexSeagull]

I remember when contractors used to post on here. We all had war chests of 6 months minimum, and if you'd been contracting more than about 5 years, you had at least 12 months stashed away.
You also knew your burn rate and what could be dropped.

It now seems like it's a bunch of permies who want everything done for them. Whatever happened to contractor mentality? It's not surprising that IR35 has been brought in when you read the full time employee attitude on here!

We are quite possibly facing the worse recession in generations while leaving the largest trading block in the world and we are quite possibly going to have our range of opportunities reduced to our immediate area due to the changes to IR35.

Contractor mentality is all well and good but you can't magic up contracts or change the bigger picture.

[TheDogsNads]

I remember when contractors used to post on here. We all had war chests of 6 months minimum, and if you'd been contracting more than about 5 years, you had at least 12 months stashed away.
You also knew your burn rate and what could be dropped.

It now seems like it's a bunch of permies who want everything done for them. Whatever happened to contractor mentality? It's not surprising that IR35 has been brought in when you read the full time employee attitude on here!

Ive been on these boards for over 15 years (despite what you may think). Ive seen a change in the contractor 'ethos' over the last 4 or 5 years. Yes, we were all green at one time or another but there's clearly been an influx of people who do not really grasp what a contractor is.

Contracting is has become more niche and that is speeding up every year. But many newer contractors see contracting as another form of permiedom. Even a number of established contractors have slipped into becoming part and parcel of the client if they are truely honest with themselves.

[ContractorHardman]

Ive been on these boards for over 15 years (despite what you may think). Ive seen a change in the contractor 'ethos' over the last 4 or 5 years. Yes, we were all green at one time or another but there's clearly been an influx of people who do not really grasp what a contractor is.

Contracting is has become more niche and that is speeding up every year. But many newer contractors see contracting as another form of permiedom. Even a number of established contractors have slipped into becoming part and parcel of the client if they are truely honest with themselves.

Totally this and you have to explain to your other people about contracting.

"You're raking it in" - Yes, but that can all change and £600 a day is actually has a lot of tax taken off at Company level and then personal level.

"You will get something else, you always do" - Not always, my skills could go out of demand just as quickly as they come in demand.

"There is always work for Business Analysts" - Not quite, BA became a broad term for a role which has since shut up shop and become much more niche. 5 years ago, a generalist BA was valued but as markets decline then more niche experience is required.