Permanent Health Insurance

Everyday living
1

Hi all, hope you are all having a good restful weekend.

As you know I was recently diagnosed RRMS and have just started my DMT (Copaxone) which I believe can take about 3 months to kick in. So far so good, a week and a half in. I inject 3 times a week. I am coping at my full time job at the moment, my boss and just a few colleagues know about my condition but I am not ready to tell the whole world. My symptons are mostly of the tightening kind around my scalp, face and neck, pins and needles on my thighs at random moments and fatigue. I have a meeting coming up with occupational health soon, though at the moment, I am relatively comfortable carrying out my job in the office with no need for any changes. I just thought I should put them on notice that I have MS just in case anything crops up.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of Income Protection Insurance Schemes (Permanent Health Insurance) with their employer. I have just noticed that my employer provides this (not too sure about the specific details and don’t want to query anything).

I stupidly took out life insurance cover without critical illness cover with my mortgage and am now thinking a lot more of the future and income. Do you have any experience of the cover that my work provides for its staff: Group Income Protection Insurance and know whether MS would be covered under it. How does it work? From what I have gathered from the forum, it is important not to reduce your days of work, if at all possible. Any other tips?

Thanks for your help.

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i googled this scheme and it sounds good as your employer provides it.

you need to clarify what exactly your own policy says.

it could be a group policy though.

it isn’t as good as critical illness cover i.e. it won’t pay off your mortgage.

what it will do is top up your income if you are on SSP for a while.

if you don’t feel comfortable asking your employer, why not ask your union rep.

carole x

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Have sent a pm

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Protection schemes provided through work can be an great blessing. Definitely look into what cover you have and make sure you understand it and the circumstances under which it would come into play. This is the kind of thing that can affect career choices (for instance whether you would consider doing anything other than sticking to your current employer like glue!) - bearing in mind that many such schemes (or pension schemes with an IHR provision) require a couple of years’ notice before cover starts. Getting as much information as you can is the key starting point here. Your HR office would be a good place to start.

I made the same mistake on the old mortgage, by the way. C’est la vie.

Alison

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Thank you all for your advice.

I have since had my meeting with Occupational Health who were very helpful.

I will speak to HR on this at a later date about specific details.

Yes, Alison the joys of hindsight on the mortgage front. Will definitely be passing the importance of this on to my children and to anyone else who will listen.