Consider this story …

Mr & Mrs Smith are an affluent couple in late 30’s/early 40′s. They have 6 children – 3 biological, 3 adopted. He is an actor and she is involved in humanitarian causes. They both look incredibly healthy. They were approached several years ago about life & illness cover but their Financial Advisor was unable to explain the value of this to them.

Then disaster struck. Mrs Smith’s mother died of ovarian cancer at age 56. Mrs Smith then decided to take a predictive genetic test to see whether she carried the mutated genes. On confirmation that she did carry the gene responsible for breast cancer, Mrs Smith took the incredibly difficult decision to take preventative measures through bilateral mastectomy (surgery to remove both breasts).

According to the medical statistics, while only about 5% of breast cancers can be directly attributed to a family history of breast cancer, if you are in this particular risk category, then the chances are unfortunately high that you will develop breast cancer.

So Mrs Smith realised there was a risk to her and did something brave to reduce this risk. Her risk of developing breast cancer is now reduced from almost 90% to around 10%.

We can all reduce our own individual risk of developing cancer; e.g., stop smoking, lose weight, eat more fruit and veg, drink less alcohol etc.

But the crux is that whilst we can reduce our risk, we cannot eliminate it altogether. Mrs Smith still has a 10% chance of contracting breast cancer notwithstanding her surgery.

However, Irish Life can help Mr & Mrs Smith do something positive to protect her family if the unfortunate happens. In our view they both need cover – both life and illness cover – more than ever now.

The good news is that they would be most likely acceptable risks (although Mrs Smith will probably have an exclusion for breast cancer). Most people would think that Mr & Mrs Smith’s opportunity to get cover had passed – when actually they need it now more than ever.

In the last 7 years Irish life has paid out 590 specified illness claims for malignant breast cancer to a value of €38.9m. The youngest claimant was just 29 years old. And by the way, males can get breast cancer too – we’ve actually paid 5 claims to males for breast cancer in the last year or so.