I'm not one for taking sides or having favourites, but it's hard to ignore Royal London's serious illness cover when making a recommendation.

Serious illness cover has never been my favourite insurance.

It's hit-and-miss; with limited illnesses covered, you can't always be sure that it's a backup plan that will have your back.

But here comes Royal London Ireland storming the stage with some sassy, serious illness specifications.

And some of their improved Specified Serious Illness Cover are unique in Ireland.

So, let's dig a little deeper and plough through all the jargon and whatnot to make sense of what Royal London Ireland offers.

Here’s the number one thing you need to know about Life Insurance: it isn’t actually for you; it’s to prevent a financial crisis for those you leave behind.

However, if you want to protect yourself then Serious Illness Cover is what you need.

Also known as Serious Illness Cover or Critical Illness Cover, Specified Serious Illness Cover pays you cash money if you get a serious illness. Get everything you need to know here.

Are you ready for some truth?

You're screwed if you can't work.

And if you have a family who depends on your income, well they're fecked too.

Imagine trying to pay the mortgage, all the bills and live on illness benefit of €200 per week.

Impossible.

That's why protecting your income is the most grown-up thing you can do especially if...

According to the Marie Keating Foundation, around 3,200 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Ireland each year.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in Ireland, after skin cancer.

1 in 10 women in Ireland develops breast cancer during their lifetime.

So it's no surprise that we advise a lot of women who have had breast cancer or who have a family history of breast cancer.

You're simply the best.

Better than alllll the rest.

Better than anyone… I have everrrrr met.

No doubt, Tina Turner didn't sing those words with the intention of a life insurance broker from Offaly using them in an article about Serious Illness Cover.

Yet here we all are.

Critical illness.

It’s a two-word pairing that strikes fear in your heart.

Like terminal cancer and heart disease.

Or Boris Johnson.

All equally calamitous harbingers of doom.

You know how in Batman – the cartoon, film, or comic, you choose – the big lad himself will go toe-to-toe with a villain. Then he’ll reach into his trustee utility belt to get whatever tool he needs to save the day?

Well, the tools come in 10 pouches (I Googled this, dear internet, for I am not a nerd who automatically knows such things) and include his Batarang, napalm (as ya do), a tranq gun and smoke pellets.

Multi-claim Protection Insurance – a new type of cover from Royal London – is a bit like the Bat-belt of insurance. Mind, I wouldn’t try and use it to fight crime as throwing a policy document at The Joker won’t accomplish much.

Remember being 14 or 15 in maths class in school? Your teacher, probably a bit of a gowl, would spend ages explaining the complicated maths on the board and then he’d ask you if you understood. You probably didn’t, but you said ‘yes’ anyway because you didn’t want to look like an eejit.

Next thing you know, Mr McGowl has asked you to come up to the board to solve an equation for ‘x’. You couldn’t find that ‘x’ if it was inscribed onto your forehead.

And all you can do is go up there and write some crap on the board while Mc Gowl tuts away.

The insurers quite often play this game when they name and explain things. Even with the best of intentions (I’ll let you consider how true that might be), they have a way of explaining things so that you can’t actually figure it out.

You’re worried the insurer will pocket your premiums and then reject your critical illness claim.

Don’t be.

Life insurance providers will decline spurious claims, but if you have a genuine one, they will pay out.

There are two main reasons an insurer will reject a critical illness claim