self employed person and I am now out sick for a few weeks: Benefits?

Hi i am a self employed person and I am now out sick for a few weeks and I am just wondering if anybody has any experience with this issue,what i want to know is am i entitled to any sort of benefit I can claim for being off work!!

I've been self employed for over 10yrs and as far as I know you're responsible for yourself unless you have private insurance cover to cover illness etc., if you go on holidays you don't get any pay from anybody else and so being out sick would be more or less the same, if you're not working you're not bringing in the money.

~Do you pay yourself a weekly/monthly wage ?
~Are there policies/ funds in your company for sick pay etc, can you set them up & legally filter money into such a fund for just these circumstances ?
~If you had other employees how are they covered? Where do/would the funds to cover thier sick pay come from ?
~try looking at your company from the perspective of an employee rather than owner. Employees are entitled to sick pay, right? so where does that sick pay come from ? Does your company have such a fund? No?, then perhaps you need to set it up, if its insurance you can put it down to a cost , hence tax deductable, right ?

Sorry more Q's than A's, maybe your accountant can advise the mechanics of covering yourself during times of Illness. There must be a way !

Try to take it easy and get better soon. No one is going to pay you, unfortunately. Your self-employed PRSI stamp doesn't get you much. I've never heard of a self-employed person insurancing themselves against illness and loss of earnings (and I doubt if you could buy this kind of policy economically anywhere).

Sick employees are usually a cost to the employer. At least in this case you're both the beneficiary and the victim of the lack of coverage.

Critical Illness Cover can be taken out to cover self employed individuals in case of illness. However there seem to be a lot of conditions to it. I don't know a whole lot about it but I do know that its available

Go to the Community Welfare Officer in your local health centre. Depending on your circumstances, s/he may be able to pay you Suppleementary Welfare Allowance and maybe mortgage/rent allowance as well.

http://www.welfare.ie/publications/sw54.html


Murt

Many self-employed persons will take out Permanent Health Insurance (PHI) to cover themselves and their family against critical illness, loss of earnings etc and a tax deduction can be got for this. AFAIK Friends First offer good PHI benefits.

I personally would stay as far away from Friends First as you can. In my experience they will do everything they can not to pay you and to drag things out for as long as possible.