Being healthy day in and day out, year after year of your working life is a pretty tall order, and like most of us you probably succumb to the odd day off for minor ailments; but what if a more severe illness or injury prevented you from earning an income for a longer period of time? How would you keep up your mortgage payments, run the car, pay credit cards and daily living expenses, such as food, clothing, electricity and other bills?

Protection is probably not something you think about when you head off to work each day or go for that weekend drive or overseas holiday. You insure your home and car without a second thought and you organise travel insurance, but you also need cover for yourself!

Official figures show that the number of people in the UK of working age who are long-term sick has stayed above 2 million since the late 1990s. (Source: Office for National Statistics - "Economic Inactivity by Reason") After 28 weeks continuous incapacity, state benefits offer only minimal help, benefits are not generous and they are currently taxable.

An Income Protection plan may be the answer - it pays a tax-free regular income designed to protect your standard of living if you suffer long-term illness or injury. For many years, metfriendly has been offering a competitively priced Income Protection plan tailored to your conditions of service, available to police officers and police staff. Our plan also pays lump sums to help meet the costs of being long-term sick. Additionally, it includes a critical illness benefit which will pay a one-off lump sum, of 6 months' pay, on diagnosis of a specified critical illness.

In 2010, metfriendly introduced a new plan aimed at younger officers - the Critical Illness and Medical Retirement, or "CIMR" plan. This provides lump sum benefits in the event of being diagnosed with a critical illness e.g. a heart attack or cancer, or being medically retired from physical (not mental) causes. Premiums are lower, especially below age 35, but cover ceases at age 45. This plan is only available to those members who do not have a full Income Protection plan. Where the CIMR plan is chosen, then you can later upgrade to a full Income Protection plan (subject to underwriting), but you cannot hold both types of plan.

Neither of these plans provides life cover, but we do offer Life Insurance plans. You can combine either of these Incapacity plans with the group cover available through the Police Federation (see 'Return to Police work' in the Table of Benefits section).