Specified Illness Cover and Income Protector - Worth it?

[Dinarius]

I am 47 years old and self-employed and paying tax at the top rate.

I am married with no children. My wife is a well paid civil servant. We are comfortably off.

About five years ago I took out both specified illness cover and income protector policies.

Specified Illness Cover:

Amount of cover is €190,461.00.

The monthly premium I pay is €140.70.

Total payments to date are €11,678.10.

The current value of the fund is €4,593.69.



Income Protector:

Disability cover is €18,284.23.

Monthly premium is €63.49.

Do these make financial sense? Should I keep them?

If I was to close them, could I leave the lump sum in the fund and hope that it eventually rose to the level of my €11k+ outlay?

Any advice?

Many thanks.

D.

 

[Ravima]

The specified illness cover causes lots of problems. The illnesses mentioned in thelarg print side of the brochure would include cancer and heart attack. However, in the smaller print, you will possibly find that the more common cancers are excluded and that in the event of a heart attack, a defined percentage of the heart muscle must be lost/damaged. If you live close to a hospital and can be treated for heart attack quickly, you might find that there is no heart muscle damaged at all.

In that situtaion, you live, but do not collect from the policy!

GP friend reccomended me to let my policy lapse.

I feel that the income protection is a better bet as you never know what might cause you to be unable to work. Again, you should make sure that the policy will pay if you are unable to work in your current occupation. If the insurers feel that you could collect post in your dept or give out petrol in the local filling station, then it is not much use to you.