Escape To The Country presenter Jonnie Irwin revealed how he made a mistake with his life insurance after discovering his terminal cancer diagnosis and has urged others to learn from him.
Jonnie was filming in Italy when he first realised something might be wrong with his health. In August 2020 he had an episode of blurry vision whilst he was driving - with subsequent tests confirming he had developed lung cancer, which had spread to his brain.
The former A Place In The Sun presenter, 49, publicly shared his diagnosis last month, after being told by doctors how his stage four lung cancer had spread to his brain and left him with just months left to live.
Recently he has been encouraging others to take out life insurance, which will provide financial help to his wife Jessica Holmes and three children - Rex, three, and two-year-old twins Rafa and Cormac - when he dies.
During an appearance on Morning Live on Thursday, Jonnie spoke about how the diagnosis made him look deeper into his finances to help support his family.
He told hosts Geraint Jones and Kimberley Walsh: "It's funny when you get diagnosed with something so serious, all control gets taken away from you and so I wanted to take control back.
"I knew I had to look after my family, it's an amazing thing, once you have a family you have this massive responsibility.
"Being freelance, I had a couple of properties, I wanted to try and be in a position to get my family into a mortgage-free situation so I sold my buy-to-lets.
"To some extent, I'd done all that I could. But I wish I'd done more, certainly in terms of life insurance."
Jonnie went into further detail about his mistake of not taking out critical illness cover following his diagnosis.
He continued: "What I didn't realise is that there's a gap and critical illness covers this gap. So when you get a terminal diagnosis, it covers you for when you're gone.
"But a terminal diagnoses can go on for years and it will affect...your illness affects your work, so if you're unable to work and you're waiting for this payout, who is going to pay the rent?
"So critical illness is a policy you take alongside that and that kicks in as soon as you're ill.
"I didn't take that and that put a lot of pressure on me, having to work on days when I didn't want to go to work, and that's one mistake I say to everyone - get it out."
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