Parkinsons and Missed Protection Insurance

The Value of Protection

Parkinsons sucks. I would use other wording but this is a professional setting so….

Two people are diagnosed with Parkinsons every hour in the UK and this number is increasing.

Whatever you do, please consider critical illness cover and income protection. You never know what is around the corner, the physical, emotional, mental and financial cost of being diagnosed with a long term medical condition.

My dad has Parkinsons. He was diagnosed about 16 years ago in his early 50s, he is 70 now. He used to be a case handler in the police, one of two people responsible in our area to assess police files and decide which cases would go to court or not.

Essentially, a super intense compliance officer that knows criminal law inside and out.

He is now very far from the person he once was.

The picture on this blog is of my dad, a couple of years ago, enjoying a coffee and one of his favourite cakes is just out of frame, a treat of a bakewell tart. I couldn’t use more recent pictures as it would not be fair to him. He has said that I can and wants to share his experiences of Parkinsons, but it does not feel right to share pictures of him in hospital when he is so vulnerable.

Living with Parkinsons

Please note that the information below is related to my dad and our family’s experience of Parkinsons. It is not representative of everyone living with Parkinsons as everyone is individual and the condition affects people in different ways.

At the moment my dad no longer wants to be here. Years ago he developed apathy which means that he has no desire to do anything. His stubbornness doesn’t help! With Parkinsons it is essential that you try and slow the progression as much as possible, with good lifestyle choices and exercise. Unfortunately my dad isn’t taking steps to slow the Parkinsons down and keeps saying that he’s waiting for the miracle cure.

He’s now at the point where his memory has started to become affected. A recent CT scan has shown that dementia hasn’t started yet, thankfully, but there are a lot of behaviours that have started to change that are the actions of someone who is not my dad. They are too personal to share but they do align with what a person with dementia experiences, so you might be able to guess some of them.

He has been in hospital the past 4 weeks having fallen and fractured his ribs. He keeps falling and when you have Parkinsons you often cannot protect yourself as you fall. Shortly after being admitted to hospital he was diagnosed with pneumonia, which I have now discovered is not a positive mix with Parkinsons. We have been told that it could take weeks or months for the delusions and hallucinations to stop.

He is convinced he is in a hostage situation, he created an incident report with the police, he’s refusing his medication at times, he has developed at least two infections and has been moved from wards next to the intensive care unit, to discharge wards and back again. 

He is in a cycle of reliving all the horrible things he used to have to assess as a police officer. It’s unthinkable and cruel.

We are looking ahead to him coming home and living with my mum again. Due to the delusions dad has shown signs of aggression, expertly throwing his IV drip stand like a javelin across the ward at another patient. Luckily he missed. She is a foot shorter than him, weighs less and has her own health conditions. She was diagnosed with severe angina earlier this year and needed heart surgery in April. Soon she will be looking after them both again and we know that this is going to make her ill.

Long Term Planning for Parkinsons

My parents have been living with us since February 2024. We are completely remodelling their house for long term care for him. It is due to be livable this Friday, a couple of days short of 6 months work.

It has not been an easy time. I have been project managing their house conversion, running my business, raising 3 children, forcing my mum to get her heart checked (she’s stubborn too), going through neurodiversity assessments with two of my children and coping with my dad’s behaviours in the house whilst he was living with us. I say this to share how Parkinsons signficiantly affects the person, but also the people close to them.

Let’s take a look at what we have needed to do for my dad:

• Alternative accommodation for 6 months whilst the house is renovated
• Structural work to open and extend two external walls on the ground floor
• Build of downstairs bedroom and wet room (I’ve tried to make it look like a fancy hotel shower room, rather than a wet room)
• Reinforced walls in the wet room to allow for floating toilet and sink, for each of cleaning
• Space for a hospital bed, hoist and at least two carers to help him
• Specifically designed kitchen, utility and other rooms for wheelchair access
• New driveway to meet building regulations for wheelchair access

This will cost no less than £200,000.

Now you might think well why do all this? Move into a bungalow, move into a specific facility or community that can help people with long term conditions. That may be suitable at times. But bungalows aren’t automatically wheelchair friendly so you would likely need to widen all the doors in the house and adapt the entrances to the building.

My dad could go into a care home, but I pity the person that suggests that to him and gets the withering look that he can give. He does not want to leave his home. We have had quotes for the cost of his care and the estimate is roughly £1,500 per week. That is £78,000 per year, my parents cannot afford that. Yes the state could step in and provide support, but when this happens the ability for us to choose where he can stay significantly reduces. When he comes out of hospital into respite care now they are suggesting he will go to a place 1h 30min to 2 hours away from us. My parents will hate that, they have been together for 51 years.

Missed Protection Insurance

There are ways to take steps to help in these situations. Protection insurance is absolutely a standout. 

Let’s look at income protection.

If my dad had me as an adviser when he was working I would have arranged for him to have £23,400 a year income to age 66 (SPA). This would have given my parents £304,200 up to his retirement age. You don’t get free medications when you have Parkinsons and he takes about 15 tablets per day. He has to see a specialist every 6 months and sometimes that is a 2.5 hr car trip away. You have to replace socks a lot as the tremors can put holes in them pretty quickly. It’s the big things and the little things, the costs add up.

As an example of cost for a 30 year old wanting this insurance now:

• £24,000 per year income protection to age 68 (current indicated state pension age)
• Financial support kicks in after 8 weeks of being ill and signed off from work
• Claim can pay right up to retirement age if unable to work ever again
• £30.08 per month guaranteed premium

So for roughly £1 per day, this person can ensure that if something happens and they can never work again due to your health, they will receive £2,000 every month until they’re 68.

You can then also look at something known as critical illness cover.

With critical illness cover if I had been his adviser I would have arranged £180,000 to age 66 and this could have been used to help towards changing the home.

Taking our 30 year old as an example again:

• £180,000 lump sum of critical illness cover to age 68 (current indicated state pension age)
• £48.48 per month guaranteed premium

The critical illness cover would not have covered the costs of the adaptations to the home that we have needed to make, but it would have paid for most of it. Still less than the cost of three years in a care home for someone living with Parkinsons, where we are based in the UK.

Naturally working in insurance and seeing the claims that we do, I am insured every which way that I can. The cost of these insurances now is more than worth it to, so that me and my family know that if the worst happens, we can focus on emotional and mental wellbeing whilst knowing that we don’t need to worry about money.

When we arrange insurances like life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection we all have our fingers crossed that we never need to make a claim. The time that the value of these insurances stand out is when you’ve missed out on these insurances, like my dad did.

As an adviser I feel that I hold people’s financial, physical and emotional futures in my hands. It’s a huge responsibility and one where every adviser should look at every option that we have at our disposal to properly protect you. 

That is what my team will do for you.

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