The impact of a heart attack is well known - but new analysis calls for its impact on pension savings to be taken into consideration, too.
New pensions analysis from Legal & General (L&G) has shown the potentially devastating financial impact a serious illness can have on retirement savings.
Contracting cancer or suffering from a heart attack can cause significant drops in income, due to time out spent recovering and convalescing from the medical problems. Assuming a pension delay of ten years from the illness, savers were found by the insurer to need to put aside the equivalent of £635 a month for a "comfortable" retirement.
However, L&G claims, if there are no illnesses, pension plan holders only need to save for £292 per month if they are to achieve the same level of retirement income. Bonnie Burns at the insurer commented: "It's well documented that many people do not save enough for their retirement. However, if you are unfortunate enough to suffer a critical illness then you may never get your pension plan back on track."
Statistics from L&G's own critical illness insurance records show that the most common conditions seriously afflicting Britons is cancer, which accounts for 50 percent of all claims. Heart attacks, stroke and multiple sclerosis - all of which have the potential to severely impact upon pension savings in the long term - also scored within the top five, as did terminal illness.
Compare savings accounts via money.co.uk
