Critical Illness Pays Out
Posted on 1st April 2025 at 11:06
Unexpected Events
There is common ground amongst us all: the reasons we exercise first thing in a morning or last thing at night, the shared enjoyment of fresh bread or cut grass. Our weekly, monthly or yearly habits create everyday patterns in the things we all do. But it is often in the uniqueness of a person or their circumstances that inspire us to change our thinking as we are drawn to the unexpected or seemingly unlikely nature of their experiences. Hearing the shocking story of another can jolt us out of our everyday mindset as we realise how fragile life as we know it can be.
Critical Illness Diagnosis
Sat on the soft chairs in our office, awaiting their mortgage appointment, our client started reflecting on the unexpected events of the last four years of his life:
“How are you getting on?”
“Yeah, not bad. I’ll probably get my transplant date in the next few months.”
“There’s a bit of a unique story in what you have experienced, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I guess. If I hadn’t have sorted those protection policies and then started with the problems, I probably wouldn’t have got covered and had nothing to claim.”
In 2022, our client started with health issues and it became clear that his kidneys were failing. He suddenly had to adjust to the reality of what the next few years would be: a slow decline in his health to point of a suspected kidney failure diagnosis. He now reflects on the last few years and cannot believe that an appointment with his mortgage and protection broker came at such a critical time.
Since 2013, Rachel had been stressing the importance of protection policies to our client; for nearly ten years he was not interested. Then in 2021 he finally agreed to having a protection appointment and getting both an Income Protection policy and Life and Critical Illness policy in place. Neither could have known that six month later his health would decline and kidney failure was a very real possibility.
Self Employed and Critically Ill
On 11th December 2024 our client underwent a kidney transplant. The last three months have been about his post-transplant recovery, and obviously he has not been working. His self-employed plumbing and gas business has run at 50% with one member of staff who can carry out the plumbing but not the gas side of the business; van finance and insurance polices have needed to be paid. His mortgage lender would only offer a reduction to interest only payments with no payment holiday, and in his words, “no doubt about it, it [my transplant] would have ruined us financially”. “The payment of the two policies have been our life... without Rachel advising me and getting the policies in place, we would not have survived financially.” Having sorted protection a few years ago, he gave himself time to work out his finances and how the payment of the policies could be best utilised. He has chosen to use his policy payout to reduce his mortgage to £20k. We will see him next month to remortgage his main residence, probably for the last time as the prospect of being mortgage free is in sight, despite everything the last four years have thrown at him.
"The two policies have been everything."
If you do not have protection, please contact us as your everyday may not always be everyday.
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