Is critical illness important?

Is critical illness important?………….YES!!!!!!

I can’t emphasise enough how important critical illness is and as an adviser I hear it all the time that ‘it’s just too expensive’.

Well let me ask you this how expensive is your lifestyle? Could you continue to survive with the disappearance of a main income if you were diagnosed with a critical illness?

For example, if you suddenly had a heart attack and needed time off to recover, could you continue to pay your mortgage, pay the utilities, food, childcare etc on the basic state sick pay? Which for the record is £92.05 a WEEK, could you continue to live and support your family on £368.20 per MONTH? I would think most of us would say no.

Worst case scenario you suffer a severe stroke or are diagnosed with a debilitating disease such as Multiple Sclerosis and are unable to ever return to work – can you continue with your mortgage, if not your home could be repossessed.

OR you could pay the extra on a critical illness policy to secure your family unit, essentially the extra cost could be one less meal out a month to ensure a roof above your head.

Some of the many reasons I have heard for not having critical illness are…

  • I can’t afford it…well let me ask you this, do you pay for sky TV, a gym membership, eat out regularly, purchase clothes unnecessary, put a cheeky bet on occasionally, if so you can afford critical illness if you make sacrifices.
  • I would rather put the extra into my pension, well you can’t touch your pension until you are 55 so what happens if you are diagnosed with a critical illness before then?
  • I might win the lottery, well the odds of winning the lottery are greater than 14 million to 1. Whereas the odds to being diagnosed with a critical illness are 1 in 4 of us during the term that we hold a mortgage.
  • I have savings I could use, well the daily telegraph stated those diagnosed with cancer spend on average £5,380 a year on treatment, hospital parking, prescriptions etc. Your savings would quickly disappear with additional yearly costs like this over and above your on-going monthly outgoings.

There are plenty more excuses you could make if you really thought about it but how important is maintaining yours and your family’s home life?

If you’re still not convinced and think the minimal life cover will be sufficient and believe ‘it will never happen to me’…the following statistics might make you think otherwise.

  • 1 in 2 of us will suffer cancer in our lifetimes.
  • According to legal and General 100,000 people suffer a stroke a year, one stroke every 5 minutes.
  • Around 175,000 heart attacks each year.

That aside providers now offer extras such as children critical illness cover included within your plan, some offer 50% of the sum assured, you can’t put a price on your child’s health.

Other services include nurse support, bereavement support, second medical opinion, mental health support and carer support. So if you are of the opinion critical illness is too expensive how much would you expect to pay for a second opinion of a diagnosis or the wages of a long term carer?

So back to my opening question: Is critical illness important – absolutely YES!!! And I hope by reading this article I have changed your opinion on the worth of such products.