Can I protect my income for less than £20 per month?

At first glance, there appears to be a vast array of options for protecting yourself and your family from the impact of illness and death.

Life protection, critical illness cover, family income benefit and income protection are amongst the most common terms you’ll hear and it’s important to know which is right for your needs.

There are usually three key reasons why people don’t take the necessary steps to take out adequate life cover or income protection:

• It won’t happen to them
• It’s too expensive
• They don’t want to think about illness and death

We have a choice in the quality of life for ourselves in the event of serious illness and for our families in the event of our untimely demise (is there any other kind?). The next point is the cost. Let’s look at that for a moment and think about if it’s really too expensive.

If you protected your income for say, £20 per month, and you took ill next year and remained unable to work for the next 20 years with your income paid to you anyway, would that be a worthwhile use of your money?

Many of us have pets and one of the things we do when we have animals that we love is we insure them against illness, the need for an operation or expensive drugs. In the process, we at least partially protect ourselves from high levels of vet fees.

Why is it then, that we’ll happily pay £20 per month or more to insure the family dog who is an expense, yet we don’t do the same for the key provider of income and security?

Something to consider is that unless you’ve just embarked on a life-changing health and fitness regime (and one you’ll stick to), there’s every chance that you’re as fit and healthy today as you’re going to be.

Therefore, doesn’t it follow that if you’re at your best now, that you protect yourself now too?

All too often we talk with people that seek income protection or critical illness cover after medical conditions have been discovered, or an investigation is underway.

At this point, even if we can provide cover, it’s likely to be much more expensive and the conditions under review or already established will be excluded from the policy.

If you combine this with all forms of cover becoming more expensive as we age, today really is the best day to put your income and life protection plans in place.

Protection in its purest form really doesn’t need to be a costly exercise and you may be very surprised at just how affordable it can be.

Everyone we know that takes action to put protection in place immediately feels relieved to have provided for their loved ones.

It’s all about finding what’s right for you and your particular circumstances and that’s why it pays to consult the experts.