LAUREN DAVIDSON PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Will you be safe from coronavirus? Almost certainly – but your money won’t be

Watching the news this week I was struck by an interview with a man who was about to be in a lot of trouble. “I’ve just come to pick up my girlfriend’s car,” he said. “I told her it would be fine to park here.”

Behind him was a car park several feet deep in water, with only the top of a small red car visible above the flood. His is a sorry example of what can happen when we presume bad things won’t happen to us.

Are you going to get coronavirus and die? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean you’re immune from its spread.

Just 15 of the thousands of people in Britain who have been tested for the virus were found to have the respiratory disease. Most of those have already recovered and been discharged from hospital. Coronavirus has a fatality rate of 2pc (compared with 10pc for Sars and 50pc for Ebola) and an average reproductive rate – indicating the number of new people each case infects – of between 1.4 and 2.5. The rate for Sars is roughly twice as high. For chickenpox it’s 10 to 12.

If we were to measure the financial contagion rate, however, it would be considerably higher. In fact, while you’ll probably be safe from coronavirus, your money has almost certainly already been affected.

Anyone with an investment Isa or a pension will be poorer than a week ago. More than $1 trillion was wiped off global stocks on Monday alone and the FTSE 100, an index of Britain’s biggest companies, suffered its worst one-day fall since 2015. The FTSE All-Share index, a broad measure of

British businesses, lost 9pc over the week.

People with holidays booked to ,via or near the places affected by coronavirus have probably lost money due to cancellations or disinclination to travel – particularly where they have no right to a refund or insurance payout.

And anyone who has already travelled to such a country – or lives with someone who has – may be out of pocket by being unable to go to work during a two-week quarantine.

The only predictable thing about these epochal events is that they arrive unannounced. You can’t shield yourself from

Anyone with an investment Isa or a pension will be less rich than a week ago

the world, but you can make measured, sensible plans so you are prepared for when the unexpected comes your way.

Diversify your portfolio so it includes defensive assets such as gold and bonds. Put aside six months of cash in case you fall ill or lose your job. Buy travel insurance when you book a holiday. Pay for things on credit card so you can claim money back using Section 75.

Learn from our soggy friend and his now-carless girlfriend. True, it may not happen to you. But maybe it already has.

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