Most diseases have a strong connection to nutrition, exercise, and general health. Little/no sugar and lots of fruit/vegetables significantly reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and other illnesses. Add some HIIT or strength training, but definitely no long/extreme endurance training. That was the point, right? Reducing risk.
No, it was about securing against this risk. Insurance is about cushioning the consequences of an event of damage, not avoiding the event itself. The latter would certainly be the nicer option, but that would actually only be feasible if you never went to work in the first place (analogous to your "no more cycling").
The average full-time salary is about 40,000. The contribution regarding pension in the mid-40s and selling the house in case of occupational disability was completely serious. Whether it has to be in the mid-40s, that's debatable.
But the average full-time salary is again something different from the average gross wage. There are many people who unfortunately can only work part-time (e.g., single parents) and they too can become ill and occupationally disabled.
As far as the rest of your post is concerned, it misses the reality of most people by such a wide margin that it’s hardly worth discussing further. Retiring early at 40, presumably still with an average
full-time salary... and the blind person who, having just barely coped with the stroke of fate, moves away from their familiar environment (where they are gradually managing even without eyesight), because
he (the partner who probably earned the money likely has no say) supposedly no longer has anything to the garden he may have worked hard for decades on... no words.
Completely understood. First, in a desk job, partial disability and occupational disability almost always overlap. Second, a blind person is partially disabled. Third, you can still work at a desk with severe visual impairment, I know of one case. Fourth, yes if I were occupationally disabled but not partially disabled, I wouldn’t depend on the money anyway. Fifth, then I could just do something else, I’m not partially disabled.
Again: occupational disability means 50%, partial disability is always
less. So if you can only sit in front of the monitor for 3 hours at a time because of a bad back, you are occupationally disabled, but not yet partially disabled. But you often hear the argument "If I could still do my job…". Repeating it constantly doesn’t make it more valid. A blind person is not necessarily partially disabled, no idea where you got that from, and whether
you depend on the money really doesn’t interest anyone. Just put yourself for 20 hours a week in a call center, do security work, or tinker away in a workshop for people with disabilities. No one says a life with occupational disability/partial disability becomes impossible—it is just significantly more comfortable if, in addition to the certainly already existing limitations, you don’t also have to take a major financial hit or drag your family down with you.
With such a fatalistic attitude,
you simply don’t need any insurance—congratulations on that. I hope you or your relatives will never regret that.