Women’s Health & Life Insurance

Women need protection insurance.

A woman that is in employment should ideally be considering income protection. I will talk about this further below, because it’s so important that women are financially independent for themselves and not reliant upon a partner.

We are no longer in a society where women stay at home, many women hold successful careers. Being employed and earning money isn’t what determines someone’s worth. There is also a financial value to raising children, to looking after the home, to being the cook, cleaner, family organiser and many other things.

This next section discusses life insurance in terms of a woman that has a family. This is because if you are a woman that does not have a partner or children, your need for life insurance is significantly reduced, and the main focus should ideally be income protection or critical illness cover.

Here are some things to consider for life insurance:

• Do you have a mortgage that your partner or children will inherit?
• Would your partner need to reduce their work and earnings, to look after your children if you die?
• If your partner cannot alter their work, if you die, would they need to pay for additional childcare?
• How will your family cope if you die and your income is no longer coming into the household?
• Does your family have spare funds to pay for your funeral?

These are some broad questions to help you think about whether life insurance might be something that you need.

To add to all of this, we need to also take into account women’s health. There seems to be a never ending number of health conditions that women can be diagnosed with. Some of them will have an influence on the insurances that you need, some won’t.

To get an idea of what you can expect when you apply for life insurance when you have a health conditions, please use the links below.

Critical illness cover pays out a cash lump sum of money, if you are diagnosed with a medical condition that is listed in the insurer’s claims set e.g. cancer, heart attack, stroke.

You will find when you look at this and get a quote that the premium seems pretty large, compared to life insurance. There is a really clear reason for this. You are much more likely to be diagnosed with a critical illness, than you are to die.

I imagine that I don’t need to tell you all the statistics regarding cancer and how likely it is that women will be diagnosed with breast cancer or cervical cancer. We are reminded with regular smear test screenings and once we reach the right age, mammograms. I think there are very few people who have not known someone in their life that has had cancer, male or female.

The questions to ask yourself about whether critical illness cover is right for you, are the same as life insurance, with a few extras. Now we are not just focusing upon women who have people dependent upon them, we are focusing upon you.

Ask yourself:

• Do you have a mortgage that you will struggle to repay if you are critically ill?
• Do you have spare cash to adapt your home, or move home, if your health changes?

These are again just some general initial questions to ask yourself. Within the UK we have a state benefit system, that some people think will look after them if they become ill, and it will, but only to a certain level. State benefits are designed to meet your most basic needs only. Critical illness cover is designed to help you help make your life more comfortable and allow you to focus on your health, without having to worry about immediate finances too.

Something that I really want to be clear about too is the survivability clause that comes with standalone critical illness cover. That is some fancy jargon that basically means critical illness cover with no life insurance combined with it. 

Critical illness cover setup on it’s own has a survivability clause. This means that if you are diagnosed with a claimable condition e.g. a heart attack, and you die within the first 10-28 days (depending upon the insurer), the insurer will not pay a claim.

This might be suit you, if you are single and have no dependents. But, there are quite a few insurers that do not charge more for including life insurance too. Sometimes where they do charge more it is hardly any difference in price. It’s always worth asking the price difference.

By including the life insurance, if you are diagnosed with a critical illness and do die shortly after, the claim will automatically transfer to a life insurance claim. 

Income protection pays you a replacement of your monthly income, if you are unable to work due to ill health.

Income protection is a policy that can often be misunderstood. The policy will pay a monthly income replacement, if you are ill and unable to work due to ill health. It does not cover loss of income due to redundancy.

Income protection policies have a number of areas that are full of jargon. Here is a breakdown of the main parts:

• Sum Assured: This is the amount of your income that is protected each month. Typically somewhere between 50-80% of your gross income.
• Deferred Period: This is the amount of time that you would need to be ill and unable to work, before a successful claim will start paying. This is often 4 weeks, 13 weeks, or 26 weeks. It cannot start before sick pay from your employer ends.
• Policy Term: This is how long the policy will last for, it is usually set to your retirement age.
• Claim Period: This is how long a successful claim will pay for and is usually 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, or all the way to your retirement age.
• Claims definition: You ideally want an ‘own occupation’ policy. This means that the policy will pay out if you are ill and cannot do your exact job. Other definitions are much broader and harder to claim on.

Income protection will look more expensive than life insurance, because you are much more likely to be ill and unable to work, than you are of dying at a young age.

If you are wondering if you need income protection, here are some questions to help support you:

• Does your employer offer enhanced sick pay?
• Do you have some money put aside to cover your bills if your income stops?
• Statutory sick pay is £95.85 per week for a maximum of 28 weeks*. Can you pay your monthly bills on £415.36 per month?

Income protection policy is the type of insurance where you hope that you will never ever need it, but if you do, it can truly transform your financial security for many years.

*Correct as of 9 March 2021, UK Gov.

For many people going on holiday is an amazing escape from work and the daily tolls of life, as it should be! The last thing that you want to do is worry about whether your travel insurance is setup right. To speak with a specialist travel insurance broker, please visit our dedicated page here.