Some Illnesses Can be Very Critical
Summary
The factors you should think about when selecting critical illness cover and the varietyof companies proffering thiskind of policy.
Your mortgage provider may offer you quite a few financial products including critical illness cover. On the other hand, as they are not specialists in this market, you will almost certainly find a superior deal somewhere else.
The amount of cover on offer is just as vital as the premium when seekingcritical illness cover. The policies from Alliance and Leicester and Nationwide are very restricted says an adviser at LifeSearch, an online and telephone life assurance broker. Standard Life covers only eight critical illnesses, with Scottish Equitable covering just 10, whereas the market leader, Aviva, covers 39.
Parkinsons, Aids, loss of speech, deafness, blindness and diabetes are some of the illnesses not covered by some of the Insurance companies. The senior advisersays that it does not warrant thinking abouta policy, which covers less than 24 ailments.
An umbrella term incorporated in all policies is ‘total and permanent disabilities’, this term means you are insured for any illness, which stops you from working permanently.
You need to be alert to the lanuage as some plans cover ‘any occupation’ while others only insure your ‘own’ occupation. You will not get a settlement under a ‘any occupation’ policy unless you are utterly incapable of carryingout a job, however menial. Therefore The adviserrecommends you sign up for a ‘own’ occupation policy.
There are a range of companies as well as Swiss Life who offer full insurance including Legal and General, Norwich Union, Standard Life, Scottish Equitable, Scottish Provident, Friends Provident, Liverpool Victoria, Skandia and Zurich Life.
For many years life insurance has been sold by a mortgage company. This has resulted in critical illness cover never being considered by many people. There are 4 times as many claims on critical illness insurance compared to life policies, when the consumer has taken out both types of policies.
Life insurance cover is really important, especially if you have dependents, as they will welcome the lump sum settlement on your death. On the other hand critical illness cover should be the priority if you have debts to settle, above all a home owner loan. The adviserconsiders critical illness to be vital as it covers the cost of your house and food, even if you are incapacitated and unable to work.
The monthly payments will be larger 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 30 year old non-smoker, who wanted£150,000 cover from a critical illness, long term policy, was given a price of 15 pounds 50 pence per month, which rose to £24-30 for smokers. However a Directorfrom Direct Line recommended a policy, which gave both life protection and critical illness cover for £17-80 a month, so paying a higher premium could be worth it.