When Jason Fenton first felt a pain in his chest during one of his regular post-work jogs, he put it down to the cold air. By the time he reached his front door, however, he was collapsing into the hallway.
“My youngest son Alfie ran to find my in-laws, who live across the street. We called 999 but they were told to drive me to the hospital. I was in so much pain I couldn’t get off the floor,” said Mr Fenton, 51, from Shropshire.
“After that, all I remember is lying in a hospital bed and being told that I was having a heart attack.”
Within two hours, he had been transferred to the Royal Stoke University Hospital to have a stent fitted. His wife, Emma, was told that there were no guarantees of survival. His eldest son, Jamie, works for the RAF and was flown home within 24 hours.
He said: “The whole thing was so surreal. I was left wondering what on Earth had just happened. I can’t imagine how my family must have felt.”
Once Fenton was successfully through surgery, his thoughts turned to one crucial thing, his family’s finances.
As a site manager in agriculture, he was going to need months off work to aid his recovery and his wife would potentially need time off to help care for him.
“One of the first things you think of after something like this happens is ‘how are we going to manage financially?’,” said Fenton. “Everything is so unknown and up in the air at the time.”
As soon as he got home from the hospital, he searched for his insurance documents. He and Emma had both taken out life insurance and critical illness cover when they first bought their home, and had been paying about £40 a month to the insurer Beagle Street.
Within six weeks, Fenton received £13,500 to help make ends meet.
Making the claim through his critical illness cover was simple, Fenton said. He used the live chat online and within an hour was emailed the forms that he needed to fill out. After answering one follow up question, the insurer paid out.
There are three main forms of protection: life insurance, critical illness and income protection.
Life insurance will pay out a tax-free lump sum to your chosen beneficiaries when you die.
With critical illness cover, you will get a lump sum payment if you suffer from any of the “critical illnesses” listed in your policy. The main illnesses covered are usually cancer, heart attacks and strokes, but policies often cover major organ transplants, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and end-stage renal failure, too.
Income protection works a little differently, as it will pay out a regular payment if you are unable to work due to illness or an accident. Most policies will pay between 50 and 65 per cent of your income on a monthly basis until you are able to start work again.
The average pay-out rate for protection products (how many claims are accepted and paid by the insurer) is about 98 per cent.
Income protection claims are the least likely to be paid, with 84.4 per cent of claims being accepted, according to the Association of British Insurers, while 91.6 per cent of critical illness claims are paid.
“Getting the money was like a weight lifted from our shoulders,” said Fenton. “We were able to pay for a few things, and Emma was able to go down to working four days a week.
“I was given the all-clear to fly in August, and we were able to use some of the money on a family holiday to Majorca. It was so beneficial to spend 10 days of quality time together, soaking up the sun and relaxing after what had been such a stressful time for everyone.”
While Fenton and his wife had been paying £40 a month, how much your insurance costs will depend on your personal circumstances and how much cover you buy.
The size of the pay-out is up to you – the more you buy, the more expensive your premiums will be. You can alter this sum over time.
When taking out life insurance, it’s worth thinking about your debts and your dependents: how much money you owe, and how much you want to leave behind. Most people will buy at least enough to cover their mortgage.
As critical illness cover is more about what you will need if you were to become seriously ill, think about your outgoings and the kind of lump sum that would ease your financial worries.
With income protection, you can choose between three main levels of cover. The most expensive is “own occupation”, where the policy will pay out if you can’t do your current job. The cheapest is “any occupation”, where your claim will only be successful if you’re too ill to do any kind of work.
For a middle ground, you could opt for “suited occupation”, which would cover you if you were unable to do your own job or a similar one that suits your qualifications and experience.
Your medical history and age will also factor into your costs. The younger and healthier you are, the cheaper your policy will be. For example, a 30-year-old might pay as little as £10 a month for £200,000 of life insurance, while a 65-year-old would pay double this monthly sum for £50,000 of cover.
Fenton’s heart attack was nearly nine months ago, but he is still not back to his old self. He takes seven tablets a day and still gets tired easily, and goes for long walks instead of jogs.
He said: “It’s been a tough year but we’ve got through it together. I really would recommend critical illness cover to everyone, you never know what’s going to happen in life.
“You may never use it – and hopefully you don’t – but if you do, that reassurance goes a long way. If we hadn’t had it, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”