If Only They'd Had Critical Illness Insurance

The Evans were an ordinary family. Mary was the homemaker, Peter had a steady job driving for Stagecoach. They'd been married for 12 years and had a daughter aged 11 and a son aged 7 and a lived in a semi in Didsbury in the outskirts of Manchester. They were planning to go on holiday to Benidorm on the Costa Blanca next year.

So life was stable and they were very happy. They had lots of friends, mostly through the school that their son and daughter attended and a good social life.

All of a sudden things changed. Peter had been having mild headaches for the past month but hadn't thought much about it - certainly no cause to take time off work to see the Doctor. Mary had given him a box of paracetamol to take to work just in case it became worse.

It was a Monday and the day started just like any other. Mary was in her dressing gown in the kitchen making sandwiches for Peter to take to work. The children were squabbling as usual. Peter was in the bathroom shaving.

Then there was a big thump. It wasn't like vase dropping on the floor. It was somehow more softer, like a large bag of potatoes falling. And it came from the bathroom.

Mary's heart fell. Somehow instinct told her something was wrong, very wrong. In a trice she was up the stairs and pushed at the bathroom door. It swung open a foot or so and stopped. She pushed but something was preventing the door from opening any more. She squeezed her head around the door and the blood drained from her face. There was Peter motionless on the floor, crumpled up face down.

For a second she froze. Then her screaming burst the morning...

It took 15 minutes for the ambulance to arrive and just four more minutes for the Paramedic's to confirm that Peter had just had a stroke. Would he survive? To be honest he was very ill. The Doctors would be able to tell her more at the hospital.

Peter did survive. He had three long months in hospital followed by two more months at a specialist rehabilitation centre. To begin with he was wheelchair bound but later he began to walk short distances with the aid of sticks.

But at age 36 he would never work again.

Does this sound like your worst nightmare?

Statistics show that one in five men and one in five women suffer a critical illness before their normal retirement age. Peter was unusual to have had a stroke so young but there are always risks like these in life.

Peter's stoke came out of the blue but hundreds of thousands of families do take out insurance to provide financial assistance should something like this happen. It's called Critical Illness Insurance. This type of insurance pays out a tax free lump sum if the policyholder is diagnosed with a critical illness. A typical insured sum would be in the £125,000 to £200,000 range - it's for the policyholder to decide. (What constitutes a "critical illness" is defined within the policy documents but they almost always cover heart attack, cancer and stroke and normally lots of other illnesses and conditions as well.)

If Peter had Critical Illness Insurance, he would have received the money within a week or so of the hospital confirming that he had a stroke. Mary could have then used some of it to buy the things that would make Peter's life more comfortable. The money would also be used to supplement the early retirement pension Peter go from his employer and the various Government allowance they now qualified for. It could also mean that Mary could afford to stay at home and care for Peter knowing that the large lump sum in the bank relieved them of financial pressure.

Critical Illness Insurance can't help heal the stroke but it certainly could mean that financially, things were OK.

Critical Illness Insurance is not cheap, but in our view is an essential part of family financial planning. Please consider it.

Michael Challiner
11 Dec 2009