Summary
The factors you should consider when choosing critical illness cover and the range of companies proffering this type of policy.
Your mortgage lender may give you a number of financial products together with critical illness cover. But, as they are not specialists in this field, you will almost certainly find a superior deal somewhere else.
The amount of cover on offer is just as important as the premium when seeking critical illness cover or mortgage insurance. The policies from Alliance and Leicester and Nationwide are awfully restricted says a senior adviser at Money Supermarket, a telephone and online life assurance broker. Legal and General covers only eight critical illnesses, with Norwich Union covering just 9, whereas the market leader, Aviva, covers 38.
Loss of speech, deafness, blindness, diabetes, Aids and Parkinsons are some of the conditions not covered by some of the Insurance companies. The Directors says that it is not worth consideringa policy, which covers less than 26 illnesses.
An umbrella term included in all policies is ‘total and permanent disabilities’, this term means you are insured for any ailment, which stops you working ever again.
You neeed to be aware of the language as some plans cover ‘any occupation’ while other policies only insure your ‘own’ occupation. You will not receive a settlement under a ‘any occupation’ policy unless you are completelyunable to carryout a job, however menial. Therefore the senior adviser recommends you sign up for a ‘own’ occupation policy.
There are a large number of companies as well as Swiss Life who offer full life insurance and life assurance including Legal and General, Norwich Union, Standard Life, Scottish Equitable, Scottish Provident, Friends Provident, Liverpool Victoria, Skandia and Zurich Life.