An Eastenders storyline in which life insurance has played a central role was a missed opportunity to discuss the importance of taking out a critical illness policy.
This is according to Alan Lakey, director at Highclere Financial Services and CIExpert (pictured), who told Health & Protection that a current storyline involving character Reiss Colwell, who murders his wife who is in a coma due to debts connected to her care, offered the popular BBC soap the chance to discuss how a critical illness policy could have avoided these debts arising in the first place.
Mounting debts
Over recent weeks viewers have discovered Colwell has taken out a life insurance policy on behalf of his wife who was in a coma and was receiving care in a private care home.
But Colwell has not been keeping up his wife’s care costs due to using the money to pay for IVF treatment for his fiancée Sonia Fowler.
Colwell has subsequently since smothered his wife and is now trying to claim on a life insurance policy taken out on her to settle debts related to the IVF treatment. He and Fowler were shown being arrested in connection with Colwell’s late wife’s murder this week, with Fowler subsequently charged.
While soaps seek to entertain the great British public, Lakey maintained this storyline was a missed opportunity to educate viewers about critical illness.
“A coma lasting more than 96 hours is a critical illness condition,” Lakey told Health & Protection. “It is a condition that is in pretty much every critical illness plan out there.”
Negative impact
Lakey added that it is rare that soaps discuss the positive impact of life insurance.
“This is one of the problems we have. And this has occurred before, many, many years ago Coronation Street had a storyline where the character Alf Roberts who had taken out life insurance, died two minutes after the plan ended two minutes after midnight,” Lakey continued.
“And it created a negative impact. It made insurance companies look bad, that idea ‘that’s why I don’t trust them’ etc.
“So it’s rare that you get a positive story. It’s always more exciting, as it is in the press where it’s something where you think ‘Oh dear – look at that’.
“The problem is that if they were to incorporate any common sense aspect then the storyline would probably not be that interesting if you brought it up.
“It’s better if there’s murder or something that’s a bit horrible because that makes a more interesting story.”
Missed opportunity
But in this storyline, there was an opportunity for a wiser character to talk about critical illness, Lakey said.
“It wouldn’t be coma insurance a character would talk about as it’s incorporated within critical illness,” Lakey added.
“But the conversation could be ‘I’ve got a critical illness plan. If you had one of those for your wife, it would have paid out.'”