Thomas Anthony

CRITICAL ILLNESS COVER

What is Critical Illness Cover?

Critical Illness Cover is an insurance plan that pays out a guaranteed cash sum if you are diagnosed as suffering from a specified critical illness, within the term of the plan. The plan has no cash-in value at any time.

Why do I need it?

Should you be unfortunate enough to suffer a critical illness, the last thing you'll want to be worrying about is money. Advances in medical science means that the chances of surviving a critical illness are improving all the time. The cash sum you'd receive from a critical illness plan could help you through the recovery period.

You may have to reduce your working hours, need to pay for medical care or have to adapt your house to make your day-to-day life easier. A critical illness plan could help all of this and more.

How much does it cost?

You can add Critical Illness Cover to one of our life insurance plans to provide extra protection against the unexpected.

The cost of your cover will depend on the level and period of cover you select as well as your personal circumstances.

You can also purchase Critical Illness Cover on it's own.

What Critical Illness Cover protects against

There are a range of core diseases common in all policies:

	Cancer

	Heart by-pass surgery

	Heart attacks

	Kidney Failure

	Major organ transplants

	Multiple Sclerosis

	Strokes

Some policies contain a far longer list, including Alzheimer's, Aids or motor neurone disease. Whether you actually need cover against them is another matter.

Total permanent disability - typically the result of an accident - is sometimes covered, and is worth having.

How critical illness insurance works

The policy is a bit like term life assurance. you pay a series of monthly premiums for an agreed period of time. Should you get diagnosed as having one of the illnesses set out on your policy, the insurer will pay out an agreed lump sum, free of tax.

Should your policy expire without you having contracted any of these illnesses, you receive nothing.

Is critical illness insurance worth having?

Here are some things to consider:

	One in three people in the UK will contract cancer at some stage and more than 1 million people suffer from it at any one time.

	More than 260,000 people suffer a heart attack every year - of which half survived. Meanwhile, 1.4 million people suffer from coronary heart disease.

	One woman in four and one man in five will suffer a stroke at some stage in their lives.

	About 18,000 patients currently receive kidney dialysis each year.

	About 85,000 people have MS, with 2,500 new diagnoses made each year.

	Over 120,000 people have Parkinson's Disease, while 18,000 people are diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer's-type disease each year.

In many cases, these diseases will strike late in life, at a time when insurance is either not needed or would be prohibitively expensive if available.

However, serious illness is not the preserve of older people and advances in medicine mean that even when diagnosed with a very serious disease, you could survive for some time.

Cancer: Among newly diagnosed 20 to 40 year-olds with cancer, over 50% of men and 65% of women will be alive five years later.

Heart Attacks: More than 50% of victims are stile alive 10 years later; according to the British Heart Foundation.

Strokes: Nearly 70% of stroke victims survive for at least 12 months, according to the Chest Heart Stroke Association.

Are you interested in Critical Illness Cover?

Complete the online enquiry form and one of our advisers will get back to you.