Sick pay - the longer the better?

[Hoppinggreen]

Forgive me if this is a daft question but I have been SE for over 10 years so employment is new to me.
I recently took 2 days off sick as I probably had Covid but I was really ill, stayed in bed for 2 both days and then struggled back to work. I work for a very small co so nobody was doing my role while I was off and while the company would hardly collapse without me I would need to catch up when I got back. So basically I could/should have been off longer but came back to catch up on work
When I got my payslip I noticed I had lost several hundred pounds for “sickness absence”, which I was really surprised about. On reading my contract I get SSP after 4 days absence.
So my question is this - would I have been financially better off to take more time off work? How does that make sense?
When I was SE obviously I got paid nothing and if this is in my contract and I signed it I can’t complain but I really can’t get my head around the fact that if I take longer off work I am financially better off

Under the current rules if you'd self isolated for 4 days you could have got SSP for all 4days. Self isolate for 3 days and you get no SSP at all.

Such an odd rule when it takes most people less than 4 days at get a test and the results.

In all seriousness though if you thought you had Covid, you really should have got a tested and then not returned to work until you had the results back (assuming you don't work from home).

I wfh so didn’t go to the office either before or after I was ill
No isolation needed either

And we all had negative tests so might not have been Covid in any case, maybe just another nasty virus

You can only claim SSP after an absence of 5 working days, and it's around £96 a week if my memory serves me correctly.

Ours is similar but not as harsh as yours. Sick pay kicks in on the second day of absence. Realised this last year as dp was unwell for a prolonged period and in and out of hospital. He would come back to work for a few days and then need another couple of days off. Realised after he would have been better off if he had just taken the whole month off. But his employer would have really really struggled if he did that.

@ConnieCaterpillar70

You can only claim SSP after an absence of 5 working days, and it's around £96 a week if my memory serves me correctly.

I really wouldn’t claim it to be honest. When I was previous employed years ago I was paid if I was off sick but that was a huge US corporation so very different

You’re not financially better off if you take longer off, no. If you were deducted “several hundred pounds” for two days’ absence then SSP is a drop in the ocean and you’re far better off going back to work as quickly as possible rather than staying off. Yes if you stay off 4 days you get SSP but as it’s such a low amount anyway, you’re still better at work.

”I really wouldn’t claim it to be honest.”

You can’t “not claim” SSP, your employer should just pay it to you anyway. But why would you not want it?

Oh I see, thank you Flowery.
If my employer paid it to me then of course I would take it, I thought it was a State benefit.
As I said I was last employed over 10 years ago, think it’s more like 15 actually so I have no idea about any of this
Clearly now I AM employed I need to learn more and read my contract more carefully!!