Although your main personal insurances should always be that of adequate life insurance to protect your family in the unfortunate event that you should die and leave your loved ones with the burden of debt, and medical health insurance to protect your family against the crippling costs of medical and hospital care, there is another form of insurance you should consider, and that is sickness and accident insurance.

Sickness and Accident Insurance for the Self Employed

If you are an employee you will most likely find you have a basic sickness and accident insurance, especially if you become injured or become ill at work, but for how long are you covered and what do the circumstances have to be? Sickness and accident insurance can give you the added protection of taking over when your employer’s sickness benefits cease and you remain unable to return to work. It is also of obvious benefit to you if you are self employed and are reliant on yourself earning your day to day income. If you were suddenly unable to keep your business running through your own sickness or injury, a sickness and accident insurance could be your only financial survival opportunity.

A sickness and accident insurance policy will give your up to 65 percent of your gross income, this is a sufficient amount for you to be able to continue paying your bills while incapacitated as well as keep food on the table. The reason why the amount paid is restricted to 65 percent of your income is that there still has to an incentive for you to return to work once you have recovered.

The benefits of such insurance normally begin after an agreed waiting period. If you don’t want a waiting period to be put in place it will mean an increase in the premium. Another matter that will affect the premium cost is the term you wish the cover to run for. Some people restrict the cover to 12 months, more often it is five years, but you can have the policy written to last a lifetime, or at least until you retire from work. Age is another factor that determines the premium you will have to pay. The benefits paid are not taxable in most countries.

Inexpensive Cover

Sickness and accident insurance is not expensive, if fact you will be quite surprised at the low cost considering the benefits you stand to receive should you become injured or ill to the extent that you are unable to work. It can be the difference in you being able to survive financially or being forced to live on government welfare.

Annual Renewal

Most sickness and accident insurance policies are taken out or renewed annually. This allows the insurer to increase the premium annually to account for any changed circumstances, your age increase, and any adverse claims that may have taken place during the previous year. Many sickness and accident insurance policies will also offer a lump sum entitlement to either you or your beneficiaries should you die whilst covered, lose any of your limbs, lose your eyesight in either or both eyes, or any illness or injury that results in total and permanent disablement. Weekly benefit payments will be paid should you receive temporary total or partial disablement or temporary total disablement if it is the result of an illness.

Unemployment Cover

You are also able to add the risk of unemployment to most sickness and accident insurance policies, this will, of course, entail an increase in premium costs, but if the circumstances are such that the threat of unemployment is real it could be worth thinking about. A feature of the unemployment option is that if you were to find yourself unemployed the insurance company will assist in finding further employment. This can be a great advantage and can help get you back to earning a full wage again faster than you might be able to do so by yourself.

Sickness and accident insurance can be obtained for little cost but it can give you substantial peace of mind knowing that if something was to happen to you that prevented you from earning your income in the normal manner you would still be able to pay your own way in life without resorting to government welfare. It will mean that your mortgage will be secure and that you will be able to continue with your life much as it was before your sickness or injury caused you to stop working.

With sickness and accident insurance you will still be able to:

• Meet your weekly fuel costs.
• Pay your food bills.
• Pay your water and electricity costs.
• Meet your credit card repayments.
• Pay all your insurance costs.
• Meet your car loans.
• Pay your rent or mortgage expenses.

Once you have arranged your life insurance, health insurance and sickness and accident insurance, you will have managed to have you and your family protected financially against any adverse disaster that could possibly destroy you and your family as it has destroyed the very fabric of many families before you; unfortunately even though these were good people, the simply did not had the necessary foresight to protect themselves before a personal disaster brought them to poverty.