Cover for getting through it, not just for after
Critical illness cover can pay you a tax-free lump sum if you’re diagnosed with one of the conditions on your policy’s list, so the bills carry on being paid while you get better.
Four things worth knowing
- A tax-free lump sum on diagnosis of a qualifying condition
- Around 35 conditions covered as standard, and more on enhanced policies
- Children’s cover included on most policies at no extra cost
- You can claim while you’re still working, and it doesn’t affect an income protection claim
Why families take it out
Because sick pay only stretches so far
Statutory sick pay is a fraction of most incomes, and there isn’t any at all if you work for yourself. A lump sum on diagnosis often makes the difference between taking the time you need and going back before you’re ready.
Because it isn’t only an older person’s policy
The larger insurers report claimants in their twenties and thirties every year. It’s priced on your age, which is the quiet argument for looking at it sooner rather than later.
Because your children are usually covered too
Most policies include children’s critical illness cover as standard, paying a share of your sum assured if a child is diagnosed. It doesn’t fix anything, but it can mean one parent stops work without a conversation about money first.
Because the money is yours
Mortgage, treatment, changes to the house, or simply replacing your income while you recover. Nobody asks what you spent it on.
What’s covered, and what isn’t
What’s covered?
You can receive a tax-free lump sum if you’re diagnosed with one of the conditions listed on your policy. Cancer, heart attack and stroke account for the large majority of claims, and a standard policy usually covers around 35 defined conditions in total, including MS, Parkinson’s, organ failure and major organ transplant. Most policies also include children’s critical illness cover up to a capped amount, and some pay additional amounts for certain less severe cancers.
What’s not covered?
The list is really the product, so a condition that isn’t on your policy’s list isn’t covered, and a diagnosis that doesn’t meet the policy’s severity definition may not be either. “Cancer” in a policy means a specific staging rather than any cancer diagnosis, and the same condition can be defined generously by one insurer and tightly by another at a similar price. Any pre-existing condition an insurer has excluded will be written plainly on your policy, and most policies ask you to survive a short qualifying period after diagnosis, usually somewhere between ten and fourteen days. Reading those definitions side by side is the part we do for you.
The three that get claimed on
Cancer
The single largest category of critical illness claims in the UK, by some distance.
Stroke
One of the three conditions that make up the large majority of claims paid.
Heart attack
Consistently among the most claimed-on conditions across the whole market.