Over the last few months, it has become increasingly clear how important wealth protection policies have become. Healthcare professionals such as specialists, nurses, and medics on the front line, interact with and treat patients with COVID-19 every day. But are insurers paying out?
This does not constitute advice and advice should be sought in all instances before acting on it.
The benefits of wealth protection insurance are never felt until the worst happens and you need it. When talking to healthcare clients, one of their concerns is always that they need to stay focused when working and don’t want to be worrying about finances rather than their patients.
This is where having insurance goes a long way to ensuring you’re not constantly thinking about how you’d fare financially in the event that you do possibly contract the virus, or other illness.
The good news is that insurers have been paying out on claims due to coronavirus.
Life Cover Pay Outs
At the height of the pandemic, insurance providers were scrambling to keep up with the demand for new and/or upgraded wealth protection policies. They had to quickly adapt their application and screening process thanks to social distancing regulations but many applicants were pleased to learn that COVID-19 was included in many policies.
According to the Association of British Insurers, between 1 March and 31 May this year, 6,689 claims were received under individual protection policies and 351 claims were received under group schemes.
An average of 77 claims were paid each day, which equates to about £980,000/ day or about £90m totally in life insurance pay outs alone. The majority of claims have been paid and pay outs are still coming.
Catastrophe Cover
No one can predict the future, but we can plan for any and all eventualities. As a specialist financial adviser, with extensive experience in assisting medical, dental and other professionals, I can help you look at a variety of options for wealth protection, such as:
- private medical insurance, income protection
- serious illness,
- how to assign a power of attorney,
- the need for a will, and
- even how to create a long-term care plan.
The three main protection plans you should be considering are
- life insurance,
- income protection, and
- critical illness cover.
Life insurance, of course, is meant to ensure your family has all they need in the event of our passing.
Critical Illness Cover and Income Protection are similar to each other, but with enough to differentiate between each other that it’s ideal to hold both types of coverage. While they both pay out in the event of an illness or injury, they each have their own benefits — namely how the pay out is distributed (lump sum vs. regular payments), the number of times you can make a claim, and the number of conditions covered.
Get Covered
At Dental and Medical Financial Services, we have made the commitment to introduce a Catastrophe Risk Assessment when designing every financial plan.
We’ll advise you of the best protection for you, creating a bespoke plan based on your individual circumstances.
With the coronavirus threat still very real, it would be wise to move securing protection policies to the top of your to-do list. In normal circumstances, we encourage as much protection as your family needs, but during tough times, we strongly advise that you review and secure your policies in order to do all you can to protect yourself, your family, and your business practice from an unforeseen future.
Want to work out how protect your wealth in a pandemic?
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Dental & Medical Financial Services have been helping doctors and dentists to build and protect their wealth, whilst saving tax for over 25 years.