Protection is the first line of financial planning for anyone who has any of their income left each month after their essential bills have been paid. Our first objective should be to protect our current situation, before planning toward more aspirational objectives such as saving and, to a lesser degree, retirement planning.
Some people do have more to protect than others in terms of both income and assets, but across that range many of us underestimate our situation either as a result of not sitting down and taking full account of our risks or because we suffer from optimism bias.
