Oh Dear No Critical Illness Insurance
The Evans were a normal family.Mary was the homemaker, Joe had a steady job driving for Easy Move. They’d been married for 17 years and had son aged 10 and a daughter aged 4 and a lived in a semi in Cheadle Hulme in the North of England. They were planning to go on vacation to Moraira on the Costa Blanca in the summer.
So life was constant and they were very content. They had good friends, mostly through the school that their son and daughter attended and a great social life.
All of a sudden things changed. Simon had been having intermittent headaches for the past three weeks but didn’t take much notice of it – certainly no cause to take time off work to go to the Doctor. Alice had given him a packet of Nurofen to take to work just in case it became much worse.
It was a Monday and the day began just like any other. Sophie was in her pyjamas in the kitchen making sandwiches for James to take to work. The youngsters were arguing as usual. James was in the bathroom washing.
Then there was a tremendous thump. It wasn’t like a plant pot dropping on the floor. It was somehow more worrying, like a huge bag of coal dropping. And it came from the bathroom.
Sophie’s heart fell. Somehow instinct told her something wasreally wrong, very very wrong. In a trice she was up the stairs and pushed at the bathroom door. It swung open a tiny bit and ceased. She pushed and pushed but something was prohibiting the door from opening any more. She poked her head around the door and the blood oozed from her face. There was Neil stock still on the floor, crumpled up face down.
For a minute she panicked. Then she screamed with horror
It took 20 minutes for the ambulance to appear and approximately five more minutes for the Paramedics to confirm that Joe had just had a severe stroke. Would he survive? To be honest he was very very ill. The Consultant would give her more information at the hospital.
Neil did did get well again. He had 5 long months in the hospital followed by four more months at a professional rehabilitation centre. To begin with he was in a wheelchair but in time he began to walk slowly with the aid of two sticks.
But at age 36 he would never be strong enough to work again.
Does this activate your worst fears?
Data shows that men and 1 in 5 women endure a serious illness before 60 to 65 years of age. James was unusual to have had a stroke so young but in life there are always risks.
Simon’s stoke came out of the blue but millions of families do have insurance policies to providesupply financial assistance should something like this crop up. It’s called Critical Illness Insurance. This sortof 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 £130,000 to 200,000 pound – it’s for the policyholder to fix. (What constitutes a “critical illness” is made known within the insurance documents but they almost always cover heart attack, cancer and stroke and usually many of other conditions and illnesses as well.)
Life Insurancecan’t help to take away the stroke but it could make sure that financially, things were satisfactory.
