Is Your Illness Critical

Summary

 

The issues you should mull over when deciding on critical illness cover and the rangeof companies tendering thiskind of policy.

 

Your mortgage provider may offer you several financial products together with critical illness cover. However, as they are not experts in this market, you will almost certainly find a better offer somewhere else.

 

The amount of cover on offer is just as significant as the premium when seekingcritical illness cover. The policies from Alliance and Leicester and Nationwide are extremely restricted says a senior adviser at LifeSearch, a telephone and online life assurance broker. Standard Life covers only eight critical illnesses, with Norwich Union covering just 9, whereas the market leader, Swiss Life, covers 39.

 

Loss of speech, deafness, blindness, diabetes, Aids and Parkinsons are some of the illnesses not covered by some of the High Street names. The senior advisersays that it does not warrant consideringa policy, which insures less than 25 illnesses.

 

An umbrella term included in all policies is ‘total and permanent disabilities’, this term means you are insured for any illness, which stops you working ever again.

 

You need to be alert to the lanuage as some policies cover ‘any occupation’ whereas other policies only insure your ‘own’ occupation. You will not receive a payout under a ‘any occupation’ policy unless you are utterly incapable of carryingout a job, however menial. Therefore The senior adviserrecommends you sign up for a ‘own’ occupation policy.

 

There are a large number of companies as well as Swiss Life who offer comprehensive cover including Standard  Life, Norwich Union, Liverpool Victoria, Scottish Provident, Scandia, Zurich Life, Friends Provident, Scottish Equitable and Legal and General..

 

For years Life Insurance   has been sold by mortgage companies. Therefore many people never considered critical illness insurance. There are four times as many claims on critical illness policies compared to life insurance, when the client has taken out both kinds of policies.

 

Life insurance cover is tremendously important, specially if you have dependents, as they will welcome the lump sum payment on your death. However critical illness insurance should be the priority if you have debts to settle, above all a mortgage. The senior adviserbelieves critical illness to be essential as it covers the cost of your household bills, even if you are incapacitated and unable to work.

 

The premiums will be higher if you are a smoker and will also be more expensive if you are older. A decreasing term policy, which is intended for people only wanting to insure the cost of their home owner loan, is the cheapest.

 

One of Hamptons customers, a 28 year old non-smoker, who required£150,000 cover from a critical illness, long term policy, was quoted £14-40 per month, which rose to 25 pounds 50 pence for smokers. However an adviserfrom Direct Line suggested a policy, which gave both life protection and critical illness cover for £16-60 a month, so paying a higher premium could be worth it.