No one likes to think about getting ill, but a planning now could make things a lot easier later on.
Even when we see other people go through difficult times, it’s easy to avoid thinking about how we’d cope in the same situation.
The reality is that more than 15 million people in England have a chronic or long-term illness and nearly a third of adults would be in financial trouble within just two months of not working.
Critical Illness Cover is one way to make sure you and your family could cope with the financial impact of illness, injury or disability.
It gives you the peace of mind that if you become critically ill, you’d get a payment to help you cope.
These payments could help you with bills, debts and outgoings and they could help you meet extra costs you might not expect, like medical bills or specialist equipment.
Lots of insurers offer Critical Illness Cover and more and more are now offering Serious Illness Cover, which goes further. These plans recognise that lots of conditions can have a big impact on your life, without being ‘critical’ and they’re designed to give you financial support that matches that impact.
The average number of conditions that Critical Illness policies cover is 39. Some Serious Illness plans can cover up to 161 conditions, depending on the level of cover you choose. That means you’re more likely to get a payment if your policy’s with them. They may also pay out in situations where other policies might not.
Traditional policies often specify one single definition of how severe or advanced your condition needs to be before they’ll pay a claim.
If your condition doesn’t meet their definition, you get nothing. With some new style plans you can get between ten per cent and 100 per cent of your cover, depending on how severe your illness is.
Importantly, with traditional policies, claiming for a critical illness usually means that your plan then comes to an end.
That means that if your condition gets worse or if you’re diagnosed with a different illness, you’re no longer covered. But with some new style plans the rest of your cover is still available if you need to claim again.
If you haven’t got yourself or your family protected in this way then now, before you need to claim, is the perfect time to review your needs.