Fathers taking care of jobs around the home could be saving their families more than £13,000 each year, according to Friends Provident.

Friends Provident has estimated that dads could be saving their families more than £13,000 each year by taking care of some of the jobs around the home. It said that each year a handyman could cost £1,545, a taxi driver £1,900, a gardener £5,023, a sports coach £639 and a domestic dad £3,954 – all jobs that many dads took on.

And Friends Provident urged families to fully value the jobs undertaken by fathers, and to get insurance cover to allow them to cope in the event of a family tragedy.

Ian Jefferies, head of protection marketing at Friends Provident, said: “While paying for these services wouldn’t dent the bank balance of the average football star, the same is not necessarily true for all families, which is why it’s so important to have sufficient cover in place to protect your family.

“Nobody likes to think of the worst happening, but sadly the truth is that a forty-year-old man has a one in five chance of contracting a critical illness before reaching retirement When you consider that England is currently seven to one to win the World Cup, the odds don’t seem so long.”