Income protection NHS

[Mel15sa]

Helloo,

I am now on my mortgage with my DH finally. I have income protection too, but am questioning why I need this. I have a long NHS service, and the sick pay is 6 months full pay. I have never been sick for more than 1 week.
Do I actually need this income protection? it is about £16 a month. I don't think touchwood that anything will stop me from working long term.

DH says just keep it incase you never know what happens...well I just had a car accident a few days ago and was not expecting that. Im okay, car cosmetic issues .

thanksss x

No one can tell you. That's what insurance is for though - the worst case situations. Terminal illness, life changing injuries or illnesses....

And presumably your car insurance covered the cosmetic issues. This is why you have insurance and your income protection plan is there for that reason.
Whether you want that insurance is a question only you can answer.

Totally agree with your husband- keep it. My husband works in the industry and is always telling people how it is there for you in the worst case scenario, the things that you just wouldn’t even think of happening and hope never do. You could end up with a cancer diagnosis and imagine having to worry about paying the bills while going through surgery, chemo, radiotherapy? You could be hit by a lorry tomorrow as one of my close family members was a few years ago, having to relearn how to speak, walk etc, imagine having the stress of not being able to pay your bills on top of rebuilding your life like that? For some income protection plans you can set a deferment period, so if you know you can 6 months full pay you can arrange your protection plan to only kick in after 6 months

@AgreeableDragon thx.
@Mrsttcno1 thanks for the insight, I did not know about the deferment! Yes that would be stressful for a worst case scenario, nowadays I do see various diagnoses increasing in number.
x

Keep it, imagine your car accident had been more serious and you were unable to work again.

It depends on many factors including what it pays out, how you'd cope if you didn't have it and the worst happens - eg if you had a serious illness and couldn't work for more than a year or had to give up work. You should also account for your DH possibly needing to give up work or at least work less if he needed to look after you or DC.

It could be that you'd be fine if the mortgage is very affordable as you'd have various entitlements due to working for the NHS. But if you'd struggle financially, and the cover is decent, you might decide it's best to carry on with it, especially as it's only £16 pm.

Please check what you are actually covered for. £16 per month seems too cheap. Unless a deferred period has already been built in.

Di you get 6 months at full pay and 6 months at half pay? If that is factored into your income protection, perhaps it could be. Also, I hope it’s not one of those policies that only pay out for a maximum couple of years.

BTW income protection will always take into account what other cover you have and will reduce any payouts accordingly.

Why did you choose income protection, do you also have life insurance or critical illness insurance? Just wondering whether you went through a broker or just bought your policy online but may be worth talking to a broker to see if what you have is the right match for your circumstances and the worst case scenario you are trying to safeguard against. As a public sector employee you need to check you aren't paying to duplicate some of your 'free' employee benefits like enhanced redundancy payments, sickness pay and pension benefits

Ex NHS worker here. Income Protection is a good one to have, and the excellent NHS sick pay means you can have a deferred period of a year which brings the cost down massively.

Income Protection covers all sorts of illnesses not covered by critical illness, eg long Covid. There are DWP benefits for those situations but they are pitifully small so being able to supplement that with IP could make a huge difference to your quality of life.