This site is mostly about what medical care costs and how to pay less for it. Short-term disability is the other half of the same emergency. The surgery generates a bill, and the six weeks you spend not working generates a hole in your income, and the second one is often the bigger number.
That is what this policy is for. It does not pay your hospital. It sends you a monthly check while a covered illness or off-the-job injury keeps you off work, and you decide whether that money goes to rent, the car payment or the deductible. Every figure below was pulled on September 7, 2026 from Aflac’s own published payroll rate card, from the City of DuPont, Washington’s 2026 Aflac rate sheet, and from the state disability programs’ own pages.
What Aflac Short-Term Disability Covers
The policy pays a flat monthly amount you pick in advance, not a percentage of your actual lost wages. Aflac’s rate card sells the benefit in units of $100 of monthly benefit, with a minimum of 5 units ($500 a month) and a maximum of 60 units ($6,000 a month). The 18- and 24-month benefit periods cap out at 30 units.
In practice your income caps the amount. Published employer rate sheets set the benefit at 60% of gross monthly pay: DuPont’s 2026 sheet lines up $30,000 of annual income with a $1,500 monthly benefit, $40,000 with $2,000, and $50,000 with $2,500.
You also choose how long benefits can run. Aflac’s card prices benefit periods of 3, 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. Aflac’s product page describes benefits lasting “several months up to a year” depending on the plan.
Three details that are easy to miss:
- Off-the-job only, unless you add a rider. The base policy covers sickness and off-the-job injury. Aflac prices an on-the-job injury rider (form A57650TX) separately, at $10.92 to $32.76 per $100 of monthly benefit per year depending on class and benefit period. If you skip it, a workplace injury is a workers’ compensation claim, not an Aflac claim.
- Worksite only. Aflac’s product page states this coverage is only available through worksite payroll deduction. You cannot buy it directly.
- You keep the policy. Aflac describes the coverage as guaranteed renewable up to age 75, and pays benefits directly to you as the policyholder.
DuPont’s enrollment form also spells out the limits that generate most denied claims: a 12-month pre-existing condition exclusion, a 30-day sickness waiting period from the policy effective date, and no benefits for pregnancy or childbirth within the first ten months (complications of pregnancy are treated as a sickness).
The Elimination Period, and Why It Is the Whole Ballgame
The elimination period is the number of days between the start of your disability and the first day benefits begin to accrue. It is quoted as two numbers, accident days first and sickness days second.
Aflac’s card prices ten combinations: 0/7, 0/14, 0/30, 7/7, 7/14, 14/14, 30/30, 60/60, 90/90 and 180/180. That choice does more to your premium than anything else on the application.
Here is the same coverage (a $2,000 monthly benefit, ages 18 to 49, industry Class B, 3-month benefit period) priced at four different waits, converted from Aflac’s annual per-unit rates to a monthly premium:
| Elimination period (accident / sickness) | Monthly premium | Annual premium |
|---|---|---|
| 0 days / 7 days | $59.80 | $717.60 |
| 7 days / 7 days | $57.20 | $686.40 |
| 0 days / 14 days | $44.20 | $530.40 |
| 7 days / 14 days | $39.00 | $468.00 |
| 14 days / 14 days | $36.40 | $436.80 |
Moving from a 0/7 wait to a 14/14 wait cuts the premium by 39%. It also means a two-week absence pays you nothing at all.
The rate card carries a second, quieter constraint: waits of 30 days or more are not sold with a 3-month benefit period, and 60-, 90- and 180-day waits require a 12-month benefit period or longer. Aflac will not sell you a long wait paired with a short payout.
So the elimination period is where you decide what problem you are actually solving. A short wait insures against the common, brief absence and costs the most. A long wait insures against the rare, serious one and is far cheaper. If you have two months of expenses saved, a 14/14 or longer wait is usually the better trade; if you are living paycheck to paycheck, the 0-day accident side is the part worth paying for.
What It Costs
Two other variables move the price. Age is banded at 18-49, 50-64 and 65-74. Occupation is banded into industry classes A through E, with desk work in the cheaper classes and hazardous work in the expensive ones.
Monthly premium for a $2,000 monthly benefit, 0/14 elimination period, 3-month benefit period, industry Class B:
| Age band | Monthly premium |
|---|---|
| 18 to 49 | $44.20 |
| 50 to 64 | $54.60 |
| 65 to 74 | $65.00 |
Those three figures appear verbatim in DuPont’s 2026 rate sheet and match Aflac’s own rate card exactly, which is a useful cross-check on both.
Longer benefit periods cost more. Same $2,000 benefit, ages 18 to 49, Class B, 0/14 wait: $44.20 a month for 3 months of coverage, $54.60 for 6 months, $75.40 for 12 months, $111.80 for 18 months and $124.80 for 24 months.
Occupation class matters about as much as a decade of age. At a 0/14 wait and a 3-month benefit period for ages 18 to 49, the same $2,000 benefit runs $41.60 a month in Class A, $44.20 in Class B, $49.40 in Class C and $62.40 in Class E.
Aflac’s rate card is a Texas payroll card and rates vary by state, so treat these as a tight range rather than a quote.
How It Compares With State Disability Programs and Employer Coverage
Before you buy anything, find out what you already have. Five states run mandatory temporary disability insurance for non-work illness and injury: California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. Puerto Rico runs one as well. Everywhere else, there is no state program and short-term disability is entirely up to your employer or you.
| Program | Benefit | Maximum | Wait and duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| California SDI | 70% to 90% of wages | $1,765 a week | Up to 52 weeks |
| New Jersey TDI | 85% of average weekly wage | $1,119 a week (2026) | Unpaid waiting week, up to 26 weeks |
| New York DBL | 50% of average weekly wage | $170 a week | 7-day wait, up to 26 weeks |
| Hawaii TDI | 58% of average weekly wage | Set annually by the state | From the 8th day, up to 26 weeks |
The spread here is enormous, and it changes the answer completely depending on where you live.
In California, the state program alone replaces 70% to 90% of wages for up to a year. Buying an Aflac policy on top of that is close to redundant for most people. New Jersey is similar at 85% and 26 weeks, and it is cheap: the 2026 worker contribution is 0.19% of the first $171,100 of wages, a maximum of $325.09 for the whole year.
New York is the opposite case. The DBL maximum has been $170 a week since long before most current workers were hired, so the state program replaces about $737 a month no matter what you earn. A $2,000 Aflac benefit on top of that is filling a real gap.
If your employer already offers group short-term disability, check the benefit percentage and elimination period on that plan first. Employer STD is not universal, and it is least common at small employers, so “I have disability through work” is worth verifying rather than assuming. Federal Social Security Disability Insurance is a different program entirely and does not cover short absences; see Medicare and disability and working while on disability for how the long-term side works.
How Benefits Are Taxed
This is the part almost nobody checks at enrollment, and it can be worth more than the premium.
IRS Publication 525 states it plainly: “If you pay the entire cost of an accident or health plan, don’t include any amounts you receive from the plan for personal injury or sickness as income on your tax return.”
The catch is the cafeteria plan. Per the same publication, if you are covered through a cafeteria plan and the premium was not included in your income, “you aren’t considered to have paid the premiums and you must include any benefits you receive in your income.” If the premium was included in your income, “you’re considered to have paid the premiums and any benefits you receive aren’t taxable.”
Translated: pre-tax premium means a taxable benefit; post-tax premium means a tax-free benefit.
The arithmetic almost always favors post-tax. Take the $44.20 monthly premium above and a 22% federal marginal rate. Running it pre-tax saves you roughly $9.72 a month, about $117 a year. But it makes a full 3-month claim, $6,000 of benefits, taxable, which costs about $1,320 in federal income tax. You would need to go more than eleven years without a claim for the pre-tax route to come out ahead.
Employers often default these deductions to pre-tax because it looks better on the paycheck. Ask which way yours is set up, and ask whether you can choose. DuPont’s own 2026 sheet prints both a pre-tax and a post-tax column for exactly this reason.
Who It’s Good For, and Who Should Skip It
Worth buying if:
- You live in a state with no mandatory disability program, or in New York where the state benefit tops out at $170 a week.
- Your employer offers no group short-term disability, or offers one with a long wait.
- You have less than a month of expenses saved and cannot absorb an unpaid gap.
- You are planning a pregnancy and the plan’s maternity coverage matters to you. Note the ten-month exclusion on DuPont’s sheet, which means you must enroll well ahead.
- You can elect the premium post-tax so the benefit arrives whole.
Probably skip if:
- You are in California or New Jersey, where the state program already replaces 70% to 90% or 85% of wages.
- Your employer already provides group short-term disability at a similar benefit level.
- You have three to six months of expenses saved. At that point you are self-insuring the same risk for free, and a longer elimination period on a cheaper policy is the better version of this purchase.
- You are being sold this alongside three other supplemental policies at open enrollment. See Aflac insurance cost for what the whole stack runs, and accident insurance, hospital indemnity insurance and critical illness insurance for what each of the others actually pays.
The Bottom Line
Aflac short-term disability is a straightforward income replacement product: about $36 to $60 a month buys a $2,000 monthly benefit for three months at ages 18 to 49, and the price swings almost 40% on the elimination period alone.
Check three things before you enroll. What your state already pays you, since California and New Jersey make this policy close to redundant and New York does not. How long you can go unpaid, which sets the elimination period and therefore the price. And whether your premium runs pre-tax or post-tax, because post-tax costs about $117 a year more and can save you over $1,300 on a single claim.
The medical bill is a separate problem with separate tools. If one has already arrived, start with how to negotiate medical bills, hospital charity care and medical bill payment plans, and read gap insurance for health plans before you buy anything else at open enrollment.