Fighting for your life shouldn’t leave you
fighting for financial security
The experience of cancer survivors shows clearly why the UK needs a stronger safety net to protect people from financial insecurity as a consequence of serious illness.
Many people assume that if they become seriously ill, the NHS, welfare system, employer sick pay or insurance will protect them financially. For many, that assumption proves wrong.
Our findings show that serious illness is not usually a short financial shock. It can cause prolonged income loss, reduced working capacity, career disruption, debt, benefit reliance and long-term insecurity.
66%
reported
significant
income drops
75%
struggled
to return to
work
93 %
continue to experience long-term physical and mental health challenges
67%
still experience impact over a decade later
We need a
financial safety net
We need a financial safey net to protect people who are serviously ill. A new income protection model could play a much stronger role in preventing this harm.
Our community told us that where people had access to income protection, critical illness cover that paid out, or employers offering six to twelve months of full pay, they were more financially stable and better able to recover.
However, too few people had this protection, and many who believed they were protected did not fully understand the limits of their cover.
Survivorship is changing,
systems haven’t
More people are living beyond cancer, sometimes for many years or decades. However, financial protection, workplace support and public understanding haven’t kept up. Too many survivors face long-term financial and employment challenges.
Our evidence suggests there remains a significant gap between the realities of living with and beyond cancer, and other serious illnesses, and how those realities are understood within workplaces, policies and the welfare system.
The long-term challenges our community shared included fatigue, pain, anxiety, depression, fear of recurrence, memory and concentration difficulties, sleep disruption, peripheral neuropathy, bowel and bladder problems, menopause-related symptoms and the long-standing consequences of surgery and treatment.
These effects are often cumulative, fluctuating and invisible. People frequently told us that no single symptom explains the impact cancer has had on their lives. Instead, it is the combined effect of multiple physical, psychological and emotional challenges that limits their ability to participate fully in everyday life.
We’re calling for financial justice
Our five calls for change:
1. Make sure people have enough to live on when they’re too ill to work
Nobody should have to choose between paying their bills and looking after their health. We’re calling for a stronger financial safety net that provides meaningful income support when serious illness prevents people from working, whether that’s for a few months or years.
2. Make financial protection available to all, despite their work or health history
Financial security shouldn’t depend on having the right employer, earning a certain salary or never having been seriously ill before. We want fairer, more accessible protection for employees, self-employed people, freelancers and those with existing or previous health conditions.
3. Make financial support easier to understand, access and trust
People shouldn’t have to fight through complicated systems, untangle hidden loopholes or prove themselves repeatedly to get the help they need. We’re calling for clearer information, fairer assessments, simpler claims processes and support that recognises the realities of serious illness, including symptoms that change from day to day.
4. Help people recover & rebuild their working lives without financial pressure
Finishing treatment doesn’t always mean being well enough to work. We want better rehabilitation, workplace adjustments, retraining and return-to-work support, so people have the time and help they need to recover, without being pushed back into work before they’re ready or risking the support they depend on.
5. Make protecting people financially a shared responsibility
Serious illness can happen to anyone, but the financial consequences too often fall on individuals and their families. We’re calling on government, employers and the financial sector to work together to create a more reliable system of protection, while helping everyone understand what support they can expect before they need it.
Through Mission Protect we are working on…
Research
& Evidence
Defining adequate income protection through survivor-led research, including quantifying long-term income loss following illness. Putting lived experience at the centre of this work.
Policy
& Advocacy
Examining what can be learned from the income protection market, including issues of transparency, exclusions, benefit caps and consumer experience, to ensure a credible offer.
Employer
Engagement
Identifying viable routes for reform, including how income protection can embed within employment structures, self-employment frameworks and wider UK economic and welfare systems.
Public
Awareness
Improving public understanding and momentum to build awareness of the financial realities of critical illness and why a stronger system of protection is needed.
Our recommendations to Government
Policy Recommendation 1
Ensure adequate income protection when ill health or disability affects people’s ability to work
People should have a financial safety net that provides enough to live on when serious illness or disability affects their ability to earn.
Ill health can lead to a sudden loss of income, with financial consequences lasting for years. Yet UK Statutory Sick Pay provides just £123.25 a week, or 80% of average earnings if lower, placing enormous financial pressure on individuals and families.
Many comparable countries provide significantly greater protection, sharing responsibility between government, employers and wider financial protection systems.
We’re calling for a stronger, fairer financial safety net that protects people’s incomes and gives them the security to recover, rehabilitate or retrain without being forced back to work before they’re ready.
Policy Recommendation 2
The need for strategic leadership
We’re calling on the DWP to take the lead in developing a long-term national strategy for income protection during serious illness or disability.
While the UK has made significant progress in protecting retirement income through workplace pensions and automatic enrolment, no equivalent system exists to protect people who become too ill to work.
We need to answer a fundamental question: how much of someone’s income should be protected when serious illness prevents them from working, and how should that responsibility be shared between government, employers and the wider financial sector?
Policy Recommendation 3
Establish an Income Protection Commission
We’ve recommended that the DWP establish an independent Income Protection Commission to develop a national approach to protecting people’s incomes when serious illness or disability prevents them from working.
The Commission would look beyond state benefits and private insurance to create a fairer, more joined-up system that works for everyone, including those currently excluded from financial protection.
This Commission must:
- Define adequate income protection, including how much income should be protected and for how long.
- Identify gaps in the current system, particularly for lower-paid workers, self-employed people and those with pre-existing health conditions.
- Establish shared responsibility between government, employers, insurers and other collective schemes.
- Explore better models, learning from other countries and approaches such as automatic enrolment into workplace pensions.
- Connect financial security with recovery, including rehabilitation, retraining and support to return to work when people are ready.
The ambition is to make adequate income protection a normal part of working life in the UK, so that becoming seriously ill doesn’t mean falling into financial crisis.
What our community told us
Over 1200 people have shared their experience of the loss of livelihood after cancer. Here are a snippet of the stories we heard…
