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Critical illness cover

Lump sum payment on diagnosis of qualifying critical illness

Life Assurance and Critical Illness Overview

• Life Assurance and critical illness cover can be taken out in conjunction or independently of each other and it is a way of providing protection for family members or business partners in the event of death or earlier critical illness. Most providers will allow you to select a maximum term up to age 70-77 depending on the provider.
• The most cost effective form of Life assurance is Death only cover, however, with one in four of us being diagnosed with a critical illness before we reach retirement it may not provide you and your close relationships with the correct protection in place.
• • Life Assurance and critical illness premiums on all policies are calculated by a number of factors of which the main Three are - Age, Lifestyle and Medical History. The lowest premium will result from a younger applicant with a clean medical history and a clean lifestyle, it is not uncommon for premiums to increase both annually and bi-annually related to your birthday.

There are a number of ways in which a policy can be set up,-

• Policy can be taken out on a single or joint life basis, if joint life basis is selected the policy will only pay out once, when the first person dies or is diagnosed with an earlier critical illness (as defined by the providers list ).
• Critical Illness providers have a defined list for critical illnesses and you will pay a larger premium for a provider who has a more extensive list, you can follow this link to see what the difference is between providers and how many types of critical illnesses are defined with each of the top companies (List attached as PDF-Crit ill). It is worth exploring this list, for a couple of pounds more each month 10-20 more defined critical illnesses can be accessed.
• Waiver of premium available.
• Policy can be written in trust.
• Guaranteed insurability option available with some lenders. (the option to increase the sum assured in the future with no further underwriting requirements).
• Guaranteed and reviewable premiums. (Guaranteed premiums are set at the outset and will not increase over the term of the cover, reviewable are reviewed every five years in the earlier years and every year later into the policy term).