Critical Illness Life

07-Sep-2010

Critical illness life cover combines two types of insurance to offer you and your family maximum protection against the unexpected.  This article aims to explain how critical illness cover and life cover work, and why many people buy them in combination. 

Having critical illness insurance means that if you were to be diagnosed with a serious 'chronic' condition that is covered on your policy, your insurer would pay out a lump sum of cash to you that could be used for anything you choose, be it medical treatment, mortgage payments or to cover living expenses for yourself if you are unable to work.  Usually your critical illness policy would specify a number of conditions that are covered, and it's important to check this in detail before proceeding with the policy and ensure that you have cover for the illnesses that concern you the most.

Life insurance is designed to cover you and your dependents in the event of your death.  Depending on the type of cover you get, you can receive cover in case you die within a specific time period (term life insurance) or for the rest of your life (whole of life insurance).  The insurer would pay your beneficiaries a lump sum of cash that could be used to pay off any debts, such as a mortgage, that you had outstanding, meet funeral expenses or provide an income for those who had previously been financially dependant on you.

Critical illness life cover means that you would be covered for both eventualities. Having this cover also means that if your illness prevented you from working and earning a living, you would have the money to pay for medical treatment and to support yourself.  Without this safety net, you may find yourself struggling to meet mortgage payments, pay credit card bills or school fees at a time when you need to be concentrating on your treatment.  

Critical illness life cover takes two main forms: Fixed term life cover with critical illness, where you have the same level of cover throughout the specified term, and Decreasing term life cover with critical illness, which is designed to pay off your mortgage balance in the event that you die unexpectedly within the agreed term or are diagnosed with a serious illness.  The latter would offer a decreasing level of cover over time to allow for the fact that your mortgage balance would be getting smaller, and therefore this type of cover usually works out to be less expensive.

Of course, contracting a serious illness or dying unexpectedly are two possibilities that nobody wants to think about.  However, if you have a family or others who rely financially on you, you have a responsibility to ensure that they are provided.  Also, critical illness life cover provides the peace of mind of knowing that your loved ones would have one less thing to worry about at a very difficult time.

Request a callback from a critical illness life specialist today.