Critical Illness cover

Critical illness cover is fast becoming one of the biggest-selling forms of life insurance, yet one in five claims is rejected by policy providers.

Many homebuyers are talked into signing up for critical illness when they take out their first mortgage. It is even more popular among people moving up the property ladder with a view to starting a family.

The estimated 12 million policies sold to date promise to pay out a structured settlement lump sum not when you die but on diagnosis of a terminal or other debilitating illness, which typically includes:

• Heart Attack,
• Cancer
• Stroke
• Kidney Failure
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Major Organ Transplant,
• Coronary Artery By-Pass
• Permanent Total Disability.
  
  Clauses can be added to cover:
  
  * AIDS and HIV
  * Alzheimer's Disease
  * Benign Brain Tumour
  * Coma
  * Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)
  * Loss of a limb, sight, speech, hearing
  * Multiple Sclerosis
  * Paralysis
  * Parkinson's Disease
  * Motor Neurone Disease

Remember, 1 in 4 of all adults suffer a heart attack and the second highest age group at risk is 20 to 30. Critical illness insurance provides a one off lump sum for a fixed number of conditions, it is not private health insurance.

At present there are two types of critical illness insurance cover in the UK. "Guaranteed", for which, as the name suggests, you pay a fixed premium for the term of the policy, and "reviewable", where the insurer can raise the premiums every few years.

The major insurers are starting to pull out of guaranteed policies so shop around for the best deal! You can often include these in a life, income, mortgage protection package.