Critical Illness Insurance

There are many critical illness insurance plans available in the market place today. As with anything they are of wide and varied quality. It is important that you do your research on the critical illness insurance plan that you want to ensure you get the correct policy for you. You will often find that critical illness insurance is categorised with life insurance and the two plans are often combined. However life insurance is a very different form of insurance, there is no real argument as you are either dead or alive so the contract within reason doesn’t make a massive difference. Critical illness insurance plans however are influenced by the amount of illnesses covered in the plan. The better of the plans have upwards of 40 illnesses and they cover all manner of critical illnesses. The main claims made under critical illness insurance plans are heart attack cancer and stroke and you will often find that these are covered under most critical illness insurance plans. You will find that males predominately suffer from heart attacks, female’s cancer and males strokes. Within cancer claims it is normally females who suffer mainly from breast cancer and males who suffer from prostrate cancer. If you make a successful claim on your critical illness insurance plan it will pay you a lump sum of money. The lump sum or the sum assured as it is sometimes called is paid to you direct and can be used for a number of different things. You may need to make some alterations to your property, after all if you have suffered from a critical illness you are probably going to be seriously ill and this may involve some lifestyle changes. The money from the plan could be used for care or even changes to the property or any specialist help you may need. The other main purpose that people will use critical illness insurance for is to protect any form of liabilities they may have. If you have any loans or mortgages then a critical illness insurance plan is a good way of protecting them. After all if you were to suffer from a critical illness it is unlikely you are going to be able to work. If you can’t work and earn money then you are unlikely to be able to maintain your liabilities. A critical illness insurance plan will pay you a lump sum and will enable you to pay off your debts and have one less thing to worry about. The critical illness plans that are available in the market can be used to suit your specific situations depending on what they are. You could take a critical illness insurance plan that decreases over the term that you decide to take it. A plan like this is ideal if you have a repayment mortgage. This is because with a repayment mortgage the sum assured will reduce month after month as you pay it off. So you will have more owing after 1 year than you will after 25 years. If you take a decreasing plan you will also often find that this is a cheaper alternative as there is less risk for the insurance company due the amount they could have to make under a claim reducing year after year month after month. If you were to have an interest only mortgage where the amount that you owe doesn’t reduce year after year then you can take you critical illness insurance on a level basis. A level plan is often more expensive than one that reduces as the insurance company will have to pay the full sum assured amount of cover should a valid claim be made under the plan. You can also decide to take your critical illness insurance out on a joint basis. This is ideal for husband and wife who may have joint liabilities and want to make sure they have some critical illness insurance. If you take a joint plan it can be cost effective and protect each other should the worse happen and you have to make a claim on the plan. You will often find with these types of joint plans it will be joint life first event, so this will mean that on the first successful claim on the plan it will payout and the sum assured will be paid. The money then can be used to pay off liabilities or provide income to family members should it be needed. A critical illness insurance plan can provide an excellent form of protection should you need it. It can provide security and peace of mind in a potentially difficult situation.