The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused many households to reassess their financial defences with the purchase of protection insurance. The diagnosis of a serious illness can mean a very difficult time for your health and your wealth. If you were to become critically ill and could not earn a living, would your family cope financially, especially to pay bills, mortgages and other expenses?

Our lifestyles may vary, but we all need to make financial safeguards. Critical illness cover can provide vital financial security when you need it most. Most homebuyers purchase life assurance when they arrange a mortgage, but overlook critical illness cover, another form of financial protection that we are statistically more likely to need before reaching retirement.

Finding the right peace of mind

With the right protection in place, you and your loved ones won’t have to worry about money when money is the last thing they want to worry about. It’s essential to find the right peace of mind when faced with the difficulty of dealing with a critical illness. Critical illness insurance pays a tax-free lump sum on diagnosis of any one of a list of specified serious illnesses, including cancer, heart attack and stroke.

The good news is that medical advances mean more people than ever are surviving life-threatening conditions that might have killed earlier generations. Critical illness insurance provides cash to allow you to pursue a less stressful lifestyle while you recover from illness, or you can use it for any other purpose.

Combining different cover types

It’s almost impossible to predict certain events that may occur within our lives, so having critical illness cover in place for you and your family, or if you run a business or company, offers protection when you may need it more than anything else. You can choose how much cover you want and whether you want to combine different cover types. You can also choose to take out cover with your partner.

Even if you are single with no dependants, critical illness cover can be used to pay off your mortgage, which means that you would have fewer bills or a lump sum to sue if you became very unwell. And if you are part of a couple, it can provide much-needed financial support at a time of emotional stress. Whether or not you need critical illness cover as well as life insurance will depend entirely on your individual circumstances.

Do you need critical illness cover?

It’s easy to think a critical illness isn’t going to happen to you, but should the worst happen you can help make sure your family and loved ones are protected by easing their financial worries. To discuss how we can help, speak to an independent financial adviser here.