You can add critical illness cover to your life insurance policy or mortgage life insurance policy. What this means is that the policy will pay out a lump sum in the event of a serious (or critical) illness. Usually the insurance company will specify what illnesses are covered, commonly these will include heart attack, cancer and stroke (of a specified severity for all illnesses). Some policies will also offer lump sums for fractured or broken bones.
You will find that the different insurance companies have different policy definitions for the illnesses.
Some statistics that could influence you:
- Cardiovascular diseases are the UK’s biggest killer.
- In England, death rates from heart attack have halved since 2002.
- There are around 150,000 incidents of stroke every year in the UK.
Source: British Heart Foundation, Coronary Heart Disease Statistics 2012 edition.“Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in England. In 2010, 41,259 new cases were diagnosed, an increase of 1.8 per cent (731 cases) compared to 2009. There were 126 new cases per 100,000 women in 2010, compared with 125 new cases per 100,000 women in 2009. These incidence rates have increased by 90 per cent between 1971 and 2010.”
Source: Office for National Statistics, Breast Cancer: Incidence, mortality and survival released Sept 2012
If you would like to discuss your insurance requirements further please call us on 020 3355 4841 or email us here.
Life insurance plans typically have no cash in value and will cease at the end of the term. If premiums are not maintained then cover will lapse.