I can only agree with the disability insurance (BU). Anyone who considers it dispensable should think about it for another 2 minutes and recalculate with a calculator. Compared to that, household contents insurance is 1000 times more dispensable.
But sure, a disability insurance quickly costs 60-80 euros or more. It’s tempting to do without it. But one shouldn’t do that, not even in professions that allegedly involve no risk.
60-80? What kind of disability insurance should you get for that? You can easily double the contribution.
Disability insurances often only pay out under legal pressure. The case numbers the industry advertises are not detailed, consumer associations also contradict them.
I’m an office worker with a healthy back (and I do what it takes to keep it that way). Stress threatens me the most, resulting in burnout. Burnout is temporary, disability insurance pays nothing.
And yet, precisely in professions with no danger, it’s money down the drain. But some would love to insure themselves even against lightning strikes.
Disability insurances are, just by the way, a German construct. Abroad, there is at most dread disease insurance for cancer etc., but as far as I know those are not lifetime pensions but lump sums.
Ergo: low probability of occurrence, insures a general life risk = high premium, plus legal dispute preprogrammed (I think Finanztest wrote something about 60% of applications being contested).
Cancer? With a pre-existing condition, you’re not insurable anyway or there’s an exclusion.
The probability of getting cancer by age 59 was 6% (men) in the USA from 2011-2013 (couldn’t find other data at the moment). In the 60s it rises to 10%, from 70 on it gets serious.
Overall very high numbers, but from the probability standpoint until retirement (and thus the insurance period) comparatively low.
Of course, close cases sensitize people extremely but skew accordingly.
According to the numbers, the risk of getting cancer up to around 50 years old is rather low. At 50-55, my kids are already easily capable of working, my wife anyway (my RLV ends then as well), meaning I only have financial obligations for myself. Insure? Nope. Not for the money needed to achieve the goal (maintaining the standard of living without working—already insane anyway) of such a policy.
