Some Illnesses are more Critical than Others

Summary

 

The things you should mull over when deciding on critical illness cover and the varietyof companies offering thisstyle of policy.

 

Your mortgage provider may propose several financial products together with critical illness cover. On the other hand, as they are not specialists in this field, you will most likely find a superior 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 awfully limited says an adviser at Money Supermarket, an online and telephone life assurance broker. Liverpool and Victoria covers only seven critical illnesses, with Friend Provident covering just 9, whereas the market leader, Aviva, covers 38.

 

Loss of speech, deafness, blindness, diabetes, Aids and Parkinsons are some of the conditions not covered by some of the Insurance companies. The advisersays that it is not worth thinking abouta policy, which insures less than 26 conditions.

 

An umbrella term incorporated in all policies is ‘total and permanent disabilities’, this term means you are insured for any illness, which prevents you from working permanently.

 

You neeed to be aware of the wording as some policies cover ‘any occupation’ while other policies only insure your ‘own’ occupation. You will not get a settlement under a ‘any occupation’ policy unless you are totally incapable of carryingout a job, however unskilled. Consequently The adviserrecommends you sign up for a ‘own’ occupation policy.

 

There are a large number of companies as well as Swiss Life who offer comprehensive 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 Quotes   has been sold by mortgage lenders. This resulted in lots of people never buying critical illness insurance. There are four times as many claims on critical illness insurance compared to life insurance, when the consumer has taken out both kinds of policies.

 

Life insurance cover is extremely important, especially if you have family, as they will welcome the lump sum settlement on your death. On the other hand critical illness cover ought to be the priority if you have debts to settle, above all a mortgage. The Directorbelieves critical illness to be more important 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 heavy drinker or smoker and will also be more expensive if you are older. A decreasing term policy, which is targeted at people only wanting to cover the cost of their home owner loan, is the cheapest.

 

One of Savill’s customers, a 28 year old non-smoker, who required150,000 pounds 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 Money Supermarket suggested a policy, which gave both life insurance and critical illness cover for £17-80 a month, so paying a higher premium could be worth it.