If you enjoy a comfortable lifestyle it can be difficult to see how things might change for the worse. But change they do. And sometimes not in ways you could have reasonably foreseen. There are a number of ways you can protect your lifestyle and your family’s interests including income protection insurance. We think it’s one of the most comprehensive ways to shield your family from the unexpected.
Research backs up our view.
There are a number of organisations in the UK dedicated to improving the way we think about and understand money. One is Credit Action a national money education charity. Established in 1994, the charity is dedicated to helping people stay in control of their finances.
This summer the charity released some sobering statistics about the financial health of the nation. The figures put in stark relief the reasons why income protection insurance makes sense.
Context
£14.03m loans are written off daily by UK banks and building societies. . These are debts people fail to pay. Looking at it another way, every 4 minutes or so, someone is declared bankrupt.
Don’t let this happen to you.
Unemployment
In 2012 between January and March 1,880 people were made redundant each day. Many of them wouldn’t have seen it coming and wouldn’t have made any contingency. Looking at unemployment another way 887,000 people had been unemployed for more than a year over the same period.
Household Debt
The average household debt including mortgages in April 2012 stood at £55,483. This may be less than you thought but it does illustrate that should you be unable to work for any reason you still have outgoings to cover.
Personal Debt
The above figures exclude personal debt on credit cards and loans. In April the daily interest paid on these nationally was £172m. That’s more outgoings you have to cover if you are unable to work.
CAB deals with more than 8000 new debt problems each day. It’s fair to assume that a proportion of these will have been caused by loss of income for one reason or another. And it seems that we don’t learn. £1.325 billion was the daily value of all credit card purchases made in one month.
Property
In the UK many people gambled on property prices continuing to rise. Most of us would only give up our property as a last resort. Yet Credit Action says every 13 minutes a property is repossessed.
These statistics reflect the changing circumstances of people from all walks of life. They probably didn’t think their circumstances would change either.
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