to think that the main breadwinner in a family should have critical illness cover

[splendide]

DH and I are disagreeing on this! Would be useful to know what other couples do.

We have life & critical illness cover, individual policies rather than joint so the other is still covered if one of us is affected. Full amount of mortgage, not decreasing, but only for term of mortgage.

We may never have to claim, but either one of us would struggle on a single income long term (we have savings for redundancy or short term sickness situations).

As you already have a decent amount of savings, I would not get CI insurance due to the expense and save the cost of the premium instead.

If you get a CI, you use the savings to live on and if you don't, you keep the money. As others have said, it's expensive and useless if you have another illness that prevents you from working.

Always worth looking to see what moneysaving expert says on the matter as they usually give a detailed independent analysis of the pros and cons and a broker is simply looking to earn comission by selling you as many policies as possible.

Lot depends on your circumstances I have 6 months full sick pay, followed by 6 months 50%. Plenty of time to downsize.

Can you afford it? Maybe you should if it's not too outrageous. Does his work give any version of it as a benefit ( mine does). Life insurance is the most important one, enough to cover the mortgage is something happens to EITHER of you. And not to sound harsh but with life insurance you will get the money if there's a 'critical' illness eventually and usually in my experience quite quickly... You should make sure you have savings enough to cover 6 months mortgage payments then you won't need it.

yes. my BiL had a heart attack last month and can't work for six months as his job involves a lot of flying. they claimed on CI expecting it to cover the time he was off but they have paid off the entire mortgage!

My dh is self employed and pays £100 per month for sickness insurance.

it's bloody irresponsible not to

I disagree, it's very expensive, only pays out in limited circumstances and the risks of being diagnosed with an illness of that nature before say 50 and the sort of age mortgages are paid off are actually very low. It's better to spend the money paying your mortgage off as fast as you can.

I had life cover both personal and through work, but I've never had critical illness cover and neither has DH.

Currently we both have life cover through work. But we've paid off the mortgage and have no other debt so we don't really need it anymore.

I have critical illness cover, is about £19 a month coming directly off my wages, cover is for £250k.

Either that isn't CI insurance or it's a special deal for your workplace. That price isn't generally available to everyone. We wouldn't be having this discussion if it was.

We have it for both of us even though I am a sahm if I had been ill and unable to do everything for the kids (they're old enough now to mind themselves but even still I would be missed on a practical level). However, my recent experience of dealing with my health insurance (a company I've been with all my life, so 40 something years) makes me think that getting a pay out for critical illness would have much in common with getting blood from a stone.

"the risks of being diagnosed with an illness of that nature before say 50 and the sort of age mortgages are paid off are actually very low."

This is what puts me off too namechange I think your far more likely to get some kind of chronic illness or mental health problem that, while less serious, can still stop you earning. And which the insurance won't cover.
If I had to insure myself it would be against loss of income more generally.
But actually- I overpay on the mortgage, keep my fixed costs as low as possible and put money in savings.
I figure I have enough of a float to keep me going until benefits can be sorted and the overpayment now puts me in a position to ask for a payment holiday in future. If you have a more complicated life with higher fixed costs you can't get out of- it might be more worth it I guess.

We have critical illness cover for both of us, but we pay nothing LIKE the sums being touted around her, because my fiance gets it through work.

To be honest, if it weren't so cheap for us, I wouldn't be so fussed about needing it - fortunately, we both earn enough to cover the bills individually, so we'd both need to become ill for it to have a major impact.

If you can defer income protection payouts for a while, it becomes much cheaper. I pay £29 a month for £2k a month payout if I can't do my job (very specific job, if I was doing a less specific job, it was £22/month), but the benefits are deferred for a year, as I get sick pay until then.
Not an option for everyone I know, but does help the affordability.

I'm insured, but DP isn't, as I'm the higher earner (usually, on mat leave currently). We could pay the mortgage and bills on my salary, but not just on his.

I'm the only one that has life insurance, I really want dh to have life insurance as well and both of us to have critical illness cover but can't afford it at the moment. anyone know any cheap ones going?

I have a policy through work for critical illness, I would have it anyway, and have a seperate policy for DH. In his line of work, an industrial accident is possible so it makes sense for him to be covered.

My partner works for a life insurance company and after some of the stories he heard, he was adamant that we get cover. Finger crossed we will never need it but we have that protection.

We both have a death in service work one which is a years wage x 3, DH's includes all illnesses.
Never bothered other than that. DC 18 this year so not needed now. We have equity in two houses and savings which we could use.
I'd rather pay into something and get something back even if it's less.

We decided against it - it is very expensive and doesn't actually cover as much as you think it would. We are well covered in the event of dh's death (mortgage paid off and high 6 figure pay out from work) and the cost of critical illness cover would be better put into paying our mortgage off sooner and saving. However, we are confident that dh's work would look after him well if he was very ill or injured - they have done so in the past for a colleague who was serriedly injured in an accident. Plus we have a fairly high income, a good amount of savings behind us and could cut back on our monthly outgoings significantly if necessary. I think you have to review your own circumstances and make a choice.

Serriedly?! I'm surprised autocorrect allowed that to happen. Seriously.

We both do - I am working and he is a SAHD. Life would be very difficult for either of us if the other had a critical illness. Any additional time I need to take off to care for DH would be unpaid. I may need to go part time etc.. We also both have life insurance for similar reasons.

I'm with Martin Lewis on this one.
People tend not to be struck down with "critical illnesses" covered by policies.

^This thread proves that Martin Lewis is wrong

Both should. Even if the one who gets ill is not thebteadwinner you will still likely need to hire a housekeeper/nanny to cover the jobs that the partner working less/not at work would most likely do/to account for the healthy partner needing to work more to cover loss of a lesser salary. Insurance is always a must-many people use the welfare state as their insurance which is fair enough if you can’t afford to buy your own because that’s the point of welfare but if you can afford it you would’ve an idiot not to. The kind of benefits/housing/healthcare/education etc. That the state provides is a bare minimum of what is required for human dignity, you don’t want to rely on it if you can help it.

Hmmm. We don't have life insurance or critical anything and husband is self employed.

Clicked on thread as I know we ought to have something but each time I've looked the options seemed overwhelming.

Presumably nothing covers for divorce which would have similar financial consequences for many.

(Just to add - were struggling a bit financially hence not able to easily spend on extra covers.)

the risks of being diagnosed with an illness of that nature before say 50 and the sort of age mortgages are paid off are actually very low.

MS at 33. I have standard life insurance for £15 a month which pays out if I die, but if I'd had critical illness it would have paid off the mortgage.