Critical Illness Cover

I can now get critical illness cover through my employer, price looks pretty good…at 35 years old it would cost £8 a month for £100k of cover. Obviously it ramps up quickly with age. But I’m not sure if the conditions are overly restrictive…I’ll post a few examples, just trying to gauge if the exclusions are the norm…or if the cover would be considerably better at market prices.

Thanks for any input…

Obviously it ramps up quickly with age.

Does it? It’s not flat rate for the life of the policy?

i wanted it but it was coming in at 75 quid a month and loads and loads of getout clauses.

Basically its only good if your going to die from the illness within 12 months!

Not true.

I can tell you from experience that Critical Illness Cover is worth its weight in gold. You don’t know what is round the corner and I am so glad that I had it for myself and my family’s sake. Not sure if that’s a good deal though, you’ll need to do some of your own googling. Exclusions however are the norm, as with any insurance policy. Each companies policies will vary. Take a look at Aviva’s terms and conditions as that’s who I was with and they were bloody brilliant come claim time.

I get CI cover through work, but its always puzzled me as to exactly what it’s compensating you for. It’s the sort of thing that, if I’d had it then, would have paid out when Mrs P was ill a few years ago, but the payout has no impact on the likelihood of recovery, which is all that matters. It’s true that serious illness can be expensive, but not usually anywhere near 100K’s worth.

However I note that you’ve got permanent disability cover in there which is probably worth it (esp. as you probably ride bikes?), which is a separate policy for me.

If I don’t take the policy out, the price ramps up. If I take it out now, its cheap (presumably as I am paying in for a considerably longer period). Other employees in my office have looked, they are in their late 50’s and the price is coming in about £50 or £60 a month.

I know years ago, a friend of my Mum was diagnosed with a serious illness, struggled to pay her mortgage until she couldn’t. Called them up, and five minutes later her mortgage was paid off. She didn’t even know she had critical illness cover! She was fairly young, got her mortgage paid, and made a full recovery as far as I know. Single with four kids as well so she was incredible fortunate.

I’m just not sure if this is offering the same kind of cover, or is the price cheaper because the circumstances that are covered have been restricted to a small proportion of cases. As suggested, I’ll try some direct comparisons with Aviva etc.

Edit: Ride horses and bikes. On my first skim read, I didn’t see any exclusions, need to check again 🙂

Usually plans are costed on age at policy start so the chance of these illnesses increases with age. There are policies that are reviewable and premiums can go up after ten years, or the level of cover drops. Check the premiums are guaranteed.

Is this tied to your employment? If you leave and the policy lapses you will pay more in open market being older; Or your health might change.

To call it critical illness it has to cover cancer heart attack and stroke with a minimum definition. Price can vary depending on how many illnesses are included but gets very hard to compare and there’s an industry around doing this for financial advisers.

The definition of Total Permanent Disability looks tough but if it’s a decent price that shouldn’t influence too much but any doubts then speak to a financial adviser. (Which I’m not)

So why is it that i cant get it below 75 quid and im 37?