As part of your overall financial planning it may be of benefit to consider the option of critical illness insurance cover, what it entails, and whether it would be important with regards to your family and loved ones future financial peace of mind.
The subject of life insurance is common knowledge and indeed many people are aware of its importance with regard to their personal financial planning, especially if they have a loan or mortgage policy to insure. But the problem is that far fewer are aware of critical illness cover and its importance with regards to their personal financial planning.
Critical illness is a completely unique form of insurance cover. It can be added to your existing policy as an extra or can be taken out independently as a form of insurance policy in its own right. Its specific purpose is to provide cover which will pay out the sum of money insured to the insurer should one of any number of critical illnesses deem them unable to work, such as cancer, heart attack, major organ transplant, stroke, and the list goes on.
What is important about this type of cover is that is that payout occurs when the condition arises, and is not reflective of the outcome of the situation. As an example, lets assume, God forbid, that you ended up having a heart attack. With the advancement of medical know how it is entirely possible that you would make a full recovery. But you would still be entitled to the payout because it is reliant on the contraction of the illness and not how you end up as a result of it.
So you can see just how beneficial this benefit can be, whether taken out as a separate policy or as an additional benefit to an existing one. But what type of policies can it be added to? Well it can run in conjunction with whole of life and level term insurance and, more importantly, mortgage protection.
It is mortgage protection or mortgage life insurance where this type of benefit is most valuable. You can have a mortgage and, should you die you would want it to be repaid of course, but not many people give very little thought to what would happen if they do not die. Lets say you have a heart attack and you don’t die you have to convalesce for e few months with no income coming in. It is this very reason why critical illness insurance is so valuable. It makes sure that debts are taken care of thus ensuring you the peace to recover without the stress of worrying about were money is going to come from.
Over and above mortgage life insurance critical illness cover has a bit of a rich mans reputation. That’s to say that people only take it out if they can really afford it and many find other things that require money be spent rather than critical illness cover. This is a shame as within your normal situation this type of cover is most valuable, once the loans are paid off additional money can be a huge benefit, maybe to adapt a home or even to take you on a world cruise, I probably don’t need to teach you how to spend it but I am sure you get the picture.
To conclude. It is obvious that critical illness insurance has many benefits, indeed some would consider it more important than life insurance, per se, as you don’t have to die for the benefits to be gained. It is up to the individual to decide whether it is affordable but it’s coverage for mortgages and loans, at the least, should definitly be weighed up against the outlay. The best bet is to seek the advice of a life insurance adviser to talk you through the options, and maybe then advise you on the best type of critical illness cover to suit your needs and finances.