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Stress The Biggest Cause For Sickness – Are You Covered? (06-Oct-2011)

The survey results published recently by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) says that stress has become the most common cause of long-term sick leave in the UK. For the first time in 12 years, stress has topped the reasons for long term sickness. Normally different forms of injury ranging from medical problems such as cancer to repetitive strain injury tend to top these charts, but stress has taken over.

There are similar reports that have been published by KPMG and as per their research, which co-relate to the fact that stresses at work relate to long term sickness. The slowing of employment activity and gloomy economic outlook leading to constant threat of losing jobs is undoubtedly one of the biggest factors. 

As per the latest warning of KPMG, with demand for staff rising only slightly last month and economic worries showing no sign of abating, new recruitment or placements could soon start to fall. The term “presenteeism” is most often quoted most of the economic consultants and analysts. Presenteeism is just the opposite of absenteeism, most people tend to over work and lead themselves into a situation of fatigue and stress if their jobs and futures with an employer is uncertain. This is commonly found in large organisations where in people tend to put in more hours out of anxiety to be visible and tend to attend meetings and network unnecessarily out of stress and fear of losing jobs and unfortunately in some instances the stress takes over and have to go on leave to combat it.  

The general rule of thumb is any one that is employed in the UK is eligible for a statutory sick pay of a maximum of 28 weeks, if they are sick for more than 4 days in a row and are earning more than £102 per week. However the statutory sick pay is just £81.60 per week and hence most people tend to buy accident and sickness insurance to cover themselves.

In the recent months, there has been an increasing level of interest in not just accident and sickness but also unemployment. There is wide range of products that are available commonly referred to as income protection or payment protection insurance and people can protect not only accident and sickness but also their unemployment. Unlike the low sums of money that the employer would pay out under the statutory sick pay scheme, one can seek to cover themselves for upto 50% of their gross income or 90% of net income, depending on the insurer.

Best Insurance has a wide range of income protection insurance and payment protection insurance and covers for various types of requirements that people may have.