According to recent figures from FTAdviser, more than half of UK adults have sustained an injury from an “everyday” accident.
These trips, slips, and falls have occurred while:
- Walking the dog (6%)
- Cooking (8%)
- Falling down the stairs (13%).
A simple accident could have huge financial implications, from time off work to the cost of private treatment. And yet, just 7% of Brits have accident and sickness cover.
Protection is a vital part of your long-term financial plans. Rather than an afterthought, consider making it the foundation upon which you build your future.
Keep reading to find out how.
Data reveals that accidents can happen during even the most mundane tasks
Accidents can happen at any time and strike at any age. While you might be more likely to pick up an injury if you regularly partake in extreme sports, for example, something as simple as walking the dog or gardening could also lead to serious injury.
A recent poll published in FTAdviser looked at the leading causes of injury. It revealed that the two most common were:
- Tripping/falling over (32%)
- Road traffic accidents (22%).
No one intends to trip or fall or be involved in a car accident, but there are other more innocuous ways that you might pick an injury:
- Sporting activity (19%)
- Falling down the stairs (13%)
- Fall from a height (10%)
- Handling, lifting or carrying heavy items (10%)
- Cooking (8%)
- Gardening (6%)
- Walking the dog (6%)
- Using/working with machinery (5%).
However an accident occurs, it will come as a shock, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be financially prepared.
More than half (52%) of surveyed adults admitted that they would need financial support if they had to take time off work unexpectedly. And yet, only 7% are financially protected.
An accident can have huge financial repercussions for you and your family
If you had to stop work due to an accident, what would happen to your household bills? They’d keep arriving, of course, but would you be able to pay them?
Protection can help in several ways:
1. Protection can replace lost income in the short term to help you maintain your lifestyle
If your accident leads to a short spell out of work, you might find that you need to dip into savings.
Hopefully, you’ll have an emergency fund in place to tide you over for three to six months. This rainy day money is designed to maintain your current lifestyle but the last few years of high inflation could have damaged its buying power. While it might have represented six months of household expenditure initially, how long will it last now?
Cover, most likely in the form of Income Protection, pays a portion of your salary each month (once an initial “excess” period has passed). This money could help to supplement withdrawals from your emergency fund to cover household bills and your mortgage.
If you are your household’s main breadwinner, this money could be vital in the short term.
2. Over the longer term, protection could help to ensure you can keep paying your future self
Paying your future self is a key part of any household budget and financial plan. You’ll want to maintain your desired lifestyle in the present while staying on course to your long-term goals. An accident, though, could see you veer off track.
Without protection in place, you might find you have to:
- Exhaust your hard-earned savings
- Reduce or cease pension contributions
- Pause regular investments.
The long-term ramifications of any of these steps could be huge. Depleted savings could leave you vulnerable if an accident or illness struck again in the future while neglecting savings and investments could mean you need to rethink your retirement plans. This could see you push back your retirement date or be forced to compromise on your lifestyle dreams.
Protecting against “everyday” accidents gives peace of mind now and for the future
Protection is something we often think about only later in life. As we have seen, though, accidents can happen at any time, with long-lasting consequences.
For this reason, it is important to protect yourself from financial shocks now.
Think about how you might safeguard your income if you had to stop working through accident or illness, and how your family would cope if the worst happened to you. From Income Protection and Critical Illness cover to life insurance, there are ways to protect yourself.
At Murphy Wealth, we can help identify gaps in your protection and find the best way to fill them. That way, you’ll know that you and your loved ones will be looked after whatever the future brings.
Get in touch
Please email us at beyourself@murphywealth.co.uk or give us a call on 0141 221 5353 if you would like help protecting yourself and your loved ones.
Please note
The information contained in this blog was correct at the time of writing and may be outdated at the time of reading.
Note that life insurance plans typically have no cash in value at any time and cover will cease at the end of the term. If premiums stop, then cover will lapse. Cover is subject to terms and conditions and may have exclusions. Definitions of illnesses vary from product provider and will be explained within the policy documentation.
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