Most people have either been sold something they'll never claim on, or have nothing at all and assume they're covered. Half an hour tells you which one you are. If you're fine as you are, that's what I'll tell you.
This page is general information, not personal advice — advice comes after a conversation about your circumstances.
Before anyone talks to you about a product, it's worth knowing what already exists. For most people it's less than they assume.
Statutory Sick Pay, per week, for up to 28 weeks. Your contract may pay more than this and many do — but this is the legal floor, and for some people it's the whole amount.
There is no Statutory Sick Pay for the self‑employed. No floor at all. Whatever you've saved is the plan.
SSP rates and duration from GOV.UK, correct at November 2026. Check your own employment contract for what it says about occupational sick pay — it's the single most useful thing you can read before buying anything.
Almost everyone I speak to has thought about dying and has never once thought about surviving. Cancer is the one that turns up, and these days it's the one you're most likely to live through — which is exactly why it costs you so much.
People in the UK born after 1960 will be diagnosed with some form of cancer at some point in their lives. Not a rare event. The normal one.
Half of people diagnosed now survive ten years or more. Treatment keeps getting better, so the question has quietly stopped being “what if I don't make it” and started being “what do we live on while I get better”.
Both figures from Cancer Research UK. The second one is the important one.
Treatment itself is free. Everything around it isn't, and nobody budgets for any of it.
The mortgage leaves your account on the same day it always did. Chemo doesn't pause your direct debits, and no lender has ever accepted a diagnosis as a reason not to pay.
Appointments are mid‑week and they are relentless. In most households that means a partner drops hours or stops altogether — so the illness takes two incomes, not one.
The thing people regret most isn't the money. It's being back at work six weeks after finishing treatment because the money ran out, when their body wasn't ready.
They're often sold as a bundle. They do completely different jobs — two of them hand you money, one of them buys you treatment, one of them is for other people — and most people only need some of them.
Your wage keeps arriving. Same sort of amount, same sort of date, for as long as you're too ill to work — so the household carries on roughly as it was while you get better.
Pays because you can't work — not because of a diagnosis. You choose how long you wait before it starts; waiting longer costs less.
A single sum of money lands in your account while you're still being treated, and nobody tells you what to spend it on. For most people this is the one that pays out, and cancer is why.
It pays only if the diagnosis meets the definition written in that policy. Early‑stage and less advanced cancers often pay a reduced amount, or nothing. The wording is the product — that's most of what I check.
Seen in days rather than months. This is the only one of the four that changes what happens to your body rather than what happens to your bank account.
Won't cover conditions you already have, and isn't a replacement for the NHS in an emergency — for a crash or a cardiac arrest you still want an ambulance.
This one does nothing for you at all. It's entirely for the people who'd still be here — it's the difference between them grieving and them grieving while selling the house.
Fair question, and most pages dodge it. Here's the real answer, in order of what actually gets claimed on rather than what sounds most dramatic.
Cancer, heart attack and stroke are the overwhelming majority of claims between them. Everything else on the list is real, and rarer.
The one that actually turns up. Money lands while you're still in treatment, so the year you spend getting better isn't also the year you go backwards financially.
You survive, you're home inside a week, and then you're told not to work for three months. It's the three months, not the heart attack, that costs you the money.
Usually leaves something behind — a hand, your speech, your driving licence. Often the one where the house needs changing rather than just the bills needing paying.
Progressive conditions pay out at diagnosis, which is typically years before you'd have to stop working. That's time to arrange your life while you're still well enough to make the decisions yourself.
Kidney failure, liver failure, or going on a transplant list. Long treatment, endless appointments, and usually no realistic way to keep working through it.
Loss of a limb, loss of sight or hearing, paralysis, severe burns, a major head injury. The ones where the question stops being your income and starts being your front door and your stairs.
Most insurers build from the same industry model definitions, so the core list is broadly consistent. Typical cover includes:
Some conditions pay the full amount and some pay a percentage. Lists run anywhere from about 40 conditions to over 170 depending on the provider — and a longer list is not automatically a better policy, because what matters is the wording on the three conditions that actually get claimed on. That comparison is the job.
These are the parts people are genuinely surprised by, and several of them pay out for things that happen to normal people in normal years.
Break a wrist playing five‑a‑side, break an ankle on the stairs, and you claim a few hundred pounds without touching the main policy. Small money. But it's the one people actually use, often years before anything serious happens, and it's what turns the whole thing from a bill you pay into something that has given you something back.
Most plans cover your children as standard, at no extra cost, and pay out if one of them is diagnosed. In practice it buys a parent the ability to simply stop working and be at the hospital, which is what every parent does anyway and then worries about afterwards.
If you're signed off and claiming, the monthly cost stops coming out of your account but the cover carries on. You don't end up cancelling the thing you're in the middle of needing because money got tight.
Same‑day video appointments for you and the family, included on most plans. The one benefit you'll use within the first month, and the reason most people stop resenting the direct debit.
Having a serious diagnosis checked by a specialist who sees that one thing all day. Changes the treatment plan more often than people expect, and costs nothing to use.
Some plans will fund treatment overseas for cancer and a few other serious conditions when what you need isn't available here, and some cover the travel and a companion with it. The benefit that sounds like marketing until it's the only option left.
Physio, counselling, and someone whose actual job is managing your return in stages rather than all at once. Insurers fund it because people who go back properly stay back.
If the same condition puts you off work again within a set window, the claim links to the first one and you don't sit through the waiting period a second time.
If you're treated on the NHS rather than privately, many plans pay you a set amount for every night you're in. Which covers the parking, the fuel, and everything else nobody counts.
Everything above depends on the provider and the plan, and some of it is an optional extra rather than standard — so treat this as the range of what exists, not a description of any one policy. Conditions pay out only where the diagnosis meets the definition written in that policy, and private medical cover does not generally cover conditions you already have. Working out which of these you'd actually use, and which you're paying for and never will, is the conversation.
No Statutory Sick Pay, no occupational sick pay, no employer behind you. The gap starts on day one.
Occupational sick pay is usually generous, and it is finite. It's worth knowing exactly where yours ends.
The payment doesn't pause because your income did. Lenders generally ask you to cover the building, not the person paying for it.
One income supporting a household has no second income to absorb the shock.
WhatsApp or a phone call. Tell me roughly what you're trying to work out and we'll find a time.
What you earn, what you'd fall back on, what you already have, and who depends on it. Phone or video — usually half an hour.
If cover makes sense I'll research the market and explain the options in plain English. If it doesn't, I'll tell you that instead.
Before this I trained as a paramedic — a first class degree and 2,300 hours of clinical placement. That job is the reason I do this one. I'd rather talk you out of cover you don't need than sell you cover you don't understand.
Thirty years in financial services, and qualified across wealth management and pensions as well as protection. Jim does the research and the technical work behind every recommendation, which means what reaches you has been checked by someone who has seen a great many policies and how they behave at claim.
Maybe not. It depends entirely on what your contract says, and contracts vary enormously — some pay full salary for months, some pay the statutory minimum and nothing more.
Two things to check: how much, and for how long. Once you know where your employer's cover stops, you know whether there's a gap worth insuring. If there isn't one, there isn't one.
Critical illness cover pays a lump sum when you're diagnosed with one of the conditions named in the policy. It pays once.
Income protection pays a monthly income while illness or injury stops you working, whatever the cause. It doesn't need a diagnosis from a list — it needs you to be unable to work.
They're often sold together. Whether you need one, both or neither depends on what you'd fall back on.
It's the most important line in an income protection policy, and it varies between providers. Broadly there are three definitions:
Own occupation — you can't do your job. Suited occupation — you can't do your job or anything similar to it. Any occupation — you can't do any job at all.
Those are three very different products at three very different prices. If you only ask one question about a policy, ask this one.
It depends on your age, your health, whether you smoke, your occupation, how much cover you want, how long you'd wait before it pays, and how long it would pay for. Those variables move the price a long way, so any figure quoted before that conversation is a guess.
What I can tell you is that the quote is free and there's no obligation attached to it.
The monthly cost is based on your age and health, so cover generally costs less the earlier you take it out, and some conditions can restrict what's available later. That's a genuine reason to look at it sooner.
It isn't a reason to buy something you don't need. If you've no dependants, no mortgage and savings that would carry you, the honest answer might be that you've got time.
Often yes, though it may come with an exclusion for anything related to that condition, a higher monthly cost, or both. Providers differ considerably in how they treat particular conditions, which is a large part of what the research stage is for.
It's worth asking before assuming you'd be declined.
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Thirty minutes, no cost, and no obligation at the end of it. Bring your employment contract if you can find it.