Declan Dunne, a surgical registrar from Liverpool, took out income protection after seeing a junior doctor develop MS and suffer a severe decrease in lifestyle.
He spoke last year at the 40th annual scientific conference of the British Association of Surgical Oncology conference about aspects of the liver, and in addition to being a surgeon has also conducted considerable amounts of medical research.
About 6 years after he took out an Income Protection policy from Friends Life, while cycling home from work 15 months ago he was involved in an accident with a van.
Dunne said: "I'd taken some time out to do research and I'd just come back in and on my way home I got hit head on by a van.
"I was pedalling home on my bike - I broke 7 vertebrae, was nearly decapitated, broke my pelvis, had head injury muscular injuries. I sustained pretty catastrophic injuries. I was in a spinal brace for four months, had problems with my speech and long term I've still got a lot of problems to contend with even now."
Dunne added: "I got back into a form of work at 6 months. I'm now officially back in full time work but if I'm being honest it's not actually back to normal. I used to do lots of additional work such as locum work so I don't take any of that now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do that again, because logistically I just spend so much time doing rehab."
When asked if people should have income protection, Dunne said: "It depends what you do and your circumstances. Doctors don't tend to go off on the sick regularly, so the policies are relatively cost effective for doctors.
Dunne also said: "My wife's a part time teacher, but the money is very much dependent on me, it's very important that I protect that and it's made a huge difference to us. "
Commenting on his insurer Dunne added: "I think they were very good and they've been very good along the whole process, I think in part because I'm working hard to get back to work and to be back in normal work, they're being very supportive."
