Does health insurance help with living costs?

[CurlsLDN]

Hello, DH is going through a bit of a health scare at the moment. Obviously I'm very worried about him, and it has forced me to consider what would happen if he or I became unable to work.

At present he works full time, and earns about 80% of our family income. I work part time and also care for 2 year old ds. My worry is that if dh were unable to work, I could step up to full time work but the cost of childcare would mean we wouldn't have enough left over for bills and rent.

So, provided dh gets over this scare and is given the all clear, I think we should put some kind of insurance in place, I'm not bothered about private healthcare as we have always had fantastic care from the nhs, but would health insurance provide some support in this sort of situation? Or should I look at something else?

You need critical illness cover for what you're talking about - available from lots of insurance people.

Do you have critical illness insurance? Obviously depends what the scare was that dh had but we took it out to cover mortgage in event of me or dh not able to work

Yes, income protection pays out in their event you are too ill to work, either At 50,75,100% of income depending on your level of insurance. Number of weeks you need to be off sick before the benefit starts ranges, again depending on your level of insurance but generally you would want it to start when company sick pay runs put. Obviously dr reports etc are needed before payment is made. Unum are one provider thee are many others. If dh has already had a health issue that may affect premiums.

Thankyou all, I have just been reading about critical illness and income protection insurance.

I don't think critical illness is what I'm looking for - it seems rather limited as to what circumstances they would pay out for, but of course anyone could end up off sick from work for months for any number of less serious conditions - eg, if dh or I had an accident and required a few months of recovery, then I guess we'd be on ssp, which if I understand it correctly is £88 a week - nowhere near enough to cover our £1k a month rent!

Possibly income protection insurance is what we need?

You need to get proper advice but I would say income protection. Many people have both.

Larger companies usually have group income protection as standard - at a set level, I.e. 50%, 2/3rds or 80% of pay are common. It's really an insurance the employer buys to cover the cost of employees who are off long term sick. I'd get your DH to check with his HR department...

My company definitely doesn't offer any insurance, and I'm pretty sure dh's doesn't either. Both companies have less than 20 employees, so even getting childcare vouchers set up has been a struggle, no pensions either!

You may have difficulty getting cover now, if your dh is already sick. Best to speak to a broker.

I think the main thing here is to cover big things like mortgage, rent etc
I would imagine the big lenders eg Halifax offer these as people take out
when they start their mortgages
Fewer companies offer good sick pay deals these days so popular