Family Warns of Hidden Financial Cost of Childhood Cancer Care

 

The family of a 13-year-old girl with recurring cancer has described the severe financial pressure created by caring responsibilities, reduced earnings and the continuing cost of ordinary household bills.

Maya, from Hythe in Kent, was first diagnosed with neuroblastoma when she was three.

After spending five years in remission, her cancer returned. Her treatment has since involved specialist teams including the Royal Marsden and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

During a clinical trial in 2025, Maya developed a brain injury which her family says left her profoundly disabled.

Her father, Terry, subsequently left work to care for her full time, while her mother, Dellanie, reduced her hours as an NHS nurse.

The family told the BBC that mortgage payments and household bills have continued while their combined earnings have fallen — leaving them worried about whether they could ultimately lose their home.

Their experience highlights a financial consequence of serious illness that can be overlooked when attention is understandably focused on treatment itself.

For many families, the biggest cost is not necessarily a medical bill. It can be the loss of income and the cost of reorganising everyday life around care.

Families can face hundreds of pounds in additional costs

Young Lives vs Cancer says children and young people with cancer and their families face almost £700 a month in additional costs on average following diagnosis.

Its research has also found that more than two-thirds of families experienced a loss of income or earnings, with the average loss reported at more than £6,000 a year.

Those figures are averages rather than estimates of what Maya's family, or any other individual household, will experience.

Costs vary significantly depending on treatment, travel, distance from specialist centres and the amount of care a child needs.

But common additional pressures can include:

  • Travel to specialist hospitals
  • Parking
  • Food while away from home
  • Higher energy costs
  • Accommodation
  • Childcare for siblings
  • Equipment or adaptations
  • Reduced working hours
  • One parent leaving employment entirely

Young Lives vs Cancer has previously found travel to treatment to be one of the largest additional expenses faced by families.

At the same time, income can fall precisely when those new costs begin.

Treatment can change the finances of the whole household

The impact of childhood cancer is therefore not confined to the person receiving treatment.

Parents can face decisions about whether both can continue working, whether one must reduce their hours and how care for other children will be organised.

That can have longer-term consequences too.

Leaving employment can mean losing salary, pension contributions and workplace benefits.

Reducing hours can affect household income for months or years.

Maya's case is particularly severe because her disability has created an ongoing requirement for care.

But the broader financial problem can affect many families dealing with serious childhood illness.

Our guide to life insurance for young families looks at why family protection is not only about salary — unpaid childcare and caring responsibilities can also have a significant financial value.

Life insurance does not solve this particular problem

The family's experience also illustrates why different forms of financial protection need to be distinguished carefully.

Standard life insurance is principally designed to provide money if the insured person dies during the policy term and a valid claim is made.

It does not normally pay because a parent has had to leave work to care for a sick child.

A household could therefore have substantial life insurance in place and still face serious financial pressure while every member of the family remains alive.

That does not make the life insurance unnecessary.

It means it protects against a different event.

Our guide to whether you really need life insurance explains why the starting point should be the financial consequences of a death rather than trying to use one policy to cover every possible family crisis.

Could critical illness cover help?

Critical illness insurance works differently.

It generally provides a lump sum when the person insured under the policy is diagnosed with one of the specified conditions and the diagnosis meets the insurer's definition.

Some adult critical illness policies also include a level of children's critical illness cover.

But this should never be assumed.

Children's benefits vary considerably between policies and can have:

  • Different covered conditions
  • Different medical definitions
  • Maximum payment limits
  • Age limits
  • Partial payments
  • Different claim rules

A serious diagnosis does not automatically guarantee a payment.

The policy wording determines whether the condition qualifies.

Our guide to combining life insurance and critical illness cover explains why critical illness benefits need to be understood separately from ordinary life cover.

Income protection addresses another risk again

Income protection is generally designed to replace part of an insured person's earnings when their own illness or injury prevents them working, subject to the policy definition and waiting period.

That is different from a parent being physically capable of working but unable to do so because they need to care for a seriously ill child.

An ordinary income protection policy should therefore not automatically be assumed to cover income lost because of caring responsibilities.

Employer arrangements may sometimes provide compassionate leave, flexible working or other support, but benefits vary widely between workplaces.

This is why a family safety net can involve several different elements rather than one insurance policy.

Our guide to critical illness cover, employer sick pay and income protection explains how the different forms of support can fit together.

State and charitable support can take time

Young Lives vs Cancer told the BBC that some help may be available through disability benefits, Carer's Allowance and charitable financial support.

But accessing that help is not always immediate.

The charity has separately highlighted delays in families receiving disability-related support while cancer-related costs begin almost as soon as treatment starts.

That timing can create a difficult gap.

A household may suddenly face:

Higher costs + lower earnings + a delay before additional support arrives.

Families with accessible savings may be able to absorb that temporarily.

Others may need to borrow money, seek charitable support or cut expenditure elsewhere.

That is why emergency savings form part of financial resilience alongside insurance and state benefits.

Caring responsibilities need to be counted

Traditional family protection calculations often focus on salary.

But Maya's family's experience shows why caring responsibilities matter too.

Suppose one parent earns £40,000 and another earns £25,000.

The household does not simply receive £65,000 of income.

It also relies on both adults being available to work, care for children, run the home and deal with everyday family responsibilities.

If serious illness requires one parent to become a full-time carer, the financial effect is not just the direct treatment cost.

It can include an entire salary disappearing from the household.

For families reviewing their protection, that is why the relevant question is broader than:

How much do we owe on the mortgage?

It can also be:

What would happen financially if one of us could no longer make the contribution we make today?

Existing cover should be checked before a crisis

The BBC report is not evidence that every family needs additional insurance.

No single policy could remove all the pressures experienced by Maya's family.

But it does show why families may benefit from understanding the protection they already have before they urgently need it.

That can include checking:

  • Life insurance
  • Critical illness cover
  • Any children's critical illness benefit
  • Employer sick pay
  • Workplace income protection
  • Death-in-service cover
  • Emergency savings
  • Mortgage commitments
  • Pension and workplace benefits

Existing policy documents should also be accessible.

During a serious illness, families may already be dealing with hospital appointments, treatment decisions, childcare and work.

Trying to discover what insurance exists at the same time can add another layer of difficulty.

What about arranging insurance after cancer?

A cancer history does not necessarily make future life insurance impossible.

But medical underwriting will normally consider factors including the type of cancer, stage, treatment, time since treatment and whether there has been any recurrence.

Recent or ongoing cancer is likely to be assessed very differently from a cancer successfully treated many years earlier.

An insurer may offer cover, increase the premium, request medical evidence, postpone a decision or decline depending on the circumstances.

Our guide to life insurance with a pre-existing medical condition includes more information about how previous cancer can affect an application.

Existing cover should also not normally be cancelled without understanding whether equivalent replacement insurance would be available.

The hidden cost of childhood cancer

Maya's circumstances are individual and unusually difficult.

But the wider financial pressures described by Young Lives vs Cancer affect families across the UK.

Cancer treatment itself may be provided by the NHS, yet households can still face hundreds of pounds of additional monthly expenditure while simultaneously losing thousands of pounds in earnings.

That is the hidden financial problem behind the BBC's report.

Insurance cannot remove the medical or emotional impact of a child's cancer.

Nor can one type of policy protect against every consequence.

Life insurance protects against death.

Critical illness insurance may provide money following a qualifying diagnosis.

Income protection generally addresses someone's own inability to work because of illness or injury.

State benefits, employer support, savings and charities can provide other parts of the safety net.

The practical lesson for families is therefore not simply to buy more cover.

It is to understand what financial support already exists, exactly what would trigger it, and where the household would be exposed if serious illness suddenly changed both its income and its costs.

Sources

Important information

This article is for general information only and does not constitute financial, insurance or medical advice. Insurance benefits, covered conditions, underwriting and claim definitions vary between providers and policies. Benefits and charitable support also depend on individual circumstances and eligibility.