We are all happy to spend money on home insurance, travel insurance, insuring our belongings, our cars and our health. But what would you do to pay your bills and feed your family if you couldn’t work due to disability or illness? Statistics indicate that there is a higher chance of becoming disabled during your working years than of dying before reaching the age of 65. But still relatively few people take steps to ensure that if the worst should happen they will still have an income.

Anybody who works for around 20 hours or more per week should be able to take out an income protection insurance policy at a reasonable cost. These policies are intended to provide you with adequate income in the event that you can no longer earn a living. One of these policies is really essential if you are the prime bread winner with bills to pay and a house to maintain.

A good income protection policy should cover mental health issues as well as physical problems. Some policies exclude mental illness and issues related to the nervous system. It is recommended that you ensure that your policy protects you from any form of disability that would prevent you from doing your work and earning a living. Ideally you should have an income protection policy that is flexible enough to support you if you are able to return to work on a part time basis.

Something else to consider with regard to income protection is what will happen if you change your job or employment. Be certain to ensure that your policy will allow you to change your job or employer.

Everybody thinks that the worst will not happen to them but 27,000 people each year leave employment due to ill health or injury and never return. Make sure that you and your family are protected if the worst should happen to you.

Second, travel insurance enables you to pay for either treatment within your destination country, or even to pay for your exit from your destination if a serious illness, injury, or death to someone in your party occurs, while you are travelling and you need to return home.

Third, travel insurance can protect the value of your possessions while you are travelling, so that you will be compensated if they are lost or stolen.

The first reason is obviously compelling. It is always within around a possibility that unexpected factors will simply render you unable to travel, and many trips demand a significant outlay upfront.

Having travel insurance is also particularly important with regards to the second reason, because of the variation in approach to charging tourists for health care in different countries.

In many countries, you will be required to pay, often on the spot, for the price of any medicines used to treat you, physician’s visits, minor or major surgery, or for use of a hospital bed or ambulance.

Finally, as well as due to general human error and accident in mislaying possessions, tourists are often particular targets for thieves in some countries.

This leaves many travelers robbed and unable to make many advances towards recovering their possessions. Travel insurance can ensure you will not lose out in this respect.