Critical Illness Insurance

We are surrounded by insurance policies for this and that and most of the time we never use them but critical illness insurance will

protect you from financial problems if you are in a situation where you will never work or live a normal life again. Although we are happy to sit with our cup of coffee and a pastry costing each day and somehow rationalize that it is a necessity, but not spend the few dollars a week it would cost for critical illness insurance to protect our finances and our loved ones health, should we ever need to.

Most critical illness insurance plans now cater for many of the more common illnesses and because statistics show that there is a good chance you will suffer one of these at some stage in your life, it is a worthwhile policy to have. Recent studies have shown that one in five men will, unfortunately contract a critical illness before they reach retirement age. Women on the other hand, fair a little better with those figures being only one in six suffering a critical illness before they retire.

Lack of knowledge or belief in the chances of contracting a critical illness might be the main reason why so few adults take out critical illness insurance protection, according to insurance companies. Protection of mortgage payments is listed as the number one reason why people decide to have critical illness insurance cover. To enable continued payment of a mortgage, most mortgages can be set up to include protection policies that include critical illness insurance in addition to life cover.

More and more people are starting to use the facilities provided by the internet to research and purchase insurance policies, including critical illness insurance. Unfortunately, being a relatively new facility, there are new problems that occur as more companies start offering services over the Internet for the first time. The reason for this lies in the fact that most critical illness insurance providers request their applicants undergo an independent medical examination prior to the policy being issued in an effort to stop any possible fraudulent claims in the future. Strangely, although this sounds as if it is to the benefit of the insurance company, it also benefits the claimant as they will not want to have problems if they make a claim on their critical illness insurance policy at some stage.

If you smoke, your premiums will also be affected as most companies that provide critical illness insurance consider the definition of a smoker as someone who has used tobacco of any sort in the previous year and are considered a higher risk. Smoking is a potential threat to your life therefore, premiums will increase. For the most part though, when you apply for critical illness insurance, the company will factor in your age, health, workplace, environment, activities and so forth. If you are laid off from work because of your condition or require specialist surgery, your critical illness insurance should cover the expenses incurred. The peace of mind that critical illness insurance and disability insurance can provide at such a time is priceless.