Archive for October, 2008

What do I need to know about critical illness insurance ?

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Critical illness prediction is nowadays of major concern for those having to bear family responsibilities. Coping with sickness and inability to work can result in inability to provide adequate standard of living to one’s family. This can result in moral and physical unrest.  

In today’s society, such a problem couldn’t be left apart and we now have some special agencies working toward avoiding financial struggle when bad times occur. They provide critical illness insurance which means providing financial security to those facing sickness and disease and who are unable to earn an income to satisfy the basic needs of their families.

 The advantage of having critical illness insurance, which is a little bit more expensive than a basic health insurance plan, is that you won’t need to worry about revenue lack when the time will come where you will be facing disease or severe sickness. Your critical illness insurance company will undertake all payments of expenses relating to your cure and will also provide you with enough capital to satisfy basic day to day expenses. The capital provided will vary upon the company policy and the insurance you’ve chosen.

Most critical illness insurance facilities offer nationwide coverage and give you the freedom of choice regarding the doctor or hospital you will turn to in bad times. This is in contrast to a basic health insurance plan which limits the coverage to a list of predefined hospitals and physicians. Thus, by having critical illness insurance, you will have the right to obtain consultation from specialists and undertake treatment in the best private hospitals, without any worry of the expense.

Finally, the nationwide nature of most critical illness insurance plans states that if you are traveling across the country and have an accident or a medical emergency, you can go to the nearest hospital or see the closest physician without worrying about the expense. Taking into consideration the above benefits of critical illness insurance, it is clear that such an insurance plan is the best choice for those bearing family responsibilities

Why do you need critical illness insurance ?

Friday, October 24th, 2008

Nowadays, having a critical illness insurance plan has become a common thing in the UK and around the world. For this reason, many critical illness insurance policies are able to provide cover for the most common illnesses. Statistics show that critical illness conditions such as cancer, heart attack or stroke may affect someone at a point in his life. Due to this, it can therefore be worthwhile having critical illness insurance. The peace of mind that you will obtain with critical illness insurance will be worth the price that you will pay for it.

Critical illness is a very comprehensive form of protection insurance, it can be invaluable to protect a family or loved ones if the worse was to happen. It can offer income in the event of critical illness or it can repay any outstanding liabilites of you were to suffer from one of the designated critical illnesses.

 

 

Further research can confirm the fact that around 20 percent of men may contract a critical illness before they retire. As for women, around 17 percent may be affected by a critical illness before they reach retirement age. Still many people may fail to take out critical illness insurance. The reason behind may be the lack of belief in the chances of falling prey to a life threatening illness. Additionally, many people even take out critical illness insurance to protect their mortgage. As such, mortgage protection plans may allow you to include critical illness insurance as riders to provide extended protection. It may be important to know that such policies can carry high premium payments.

What critical illness cover options are available to me ?

Friday, October 17th, 2008

When taking out a critical illness policy you can apply for both you and your partner on a joint policy or have to two single polices which ever best suits your circumstances.

Level Term Cover, this is a fixed lump sum which remains the same throughout the term of the policy which will be decided on once applying for this type of policy. Mortgage Protection Term Cover decreases each month, at the same rate as the capital on your mortgage. Typically you can choose for the term of the policy to be anything from five to fours years depending on your age.

Within either of these cover you can choose to have guaranteed premium or a review able premium. The guaranteed premium is fixed for the length of the term. The reviewable premium however will be looked at every five years. At the review the premium could increase, decrease or stay the same. The factors that can effect whether the premium increases, decreases or stays the same is whether the company assumptions on claims costs, investment income, inflation and expenses were correct at that time. If they are better than expected then the premium will be decreased if there expectation were right then it will stay the same if however there expectation were wrong and they had more claims than expected for example then the premium would be increased. The longer the term of the policy on reviewable basis the more reviews there will be and therefore there are more chances of the premiums altering.

There are also other options which can be added to a critical illness policy for example the Indexation Option, Fracture Cover Option, Premium Waiver Option, Total Permanent Disability and/or Reinstatement Option.

What can I add to my critical illness policy ?

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

There are six options which are available to applicants once they have chosen to take out a critical illness policy. These are as follows, Indexation, Premium Waiver, Fracture Cover, Reinstatement, Replacement and Total Permanent Disability.

Choosing the indexation option when taking out a policy can help to protect the value of the benefit amount over the chosen years. There are different indexations options typically they are increases in line with the Retail Price Index (RPI), Average Earnings Index (AEI) or by five per cent or by ten per cent. These automatic increases will occur on each anniversary following the commencement of your policy. Both the RPI and AEI increases are calculated based on average which would normally be twelve months over a fifteen month period. The premium increases may well be greater than your benefit increase as allowance is made for age and the remaining term of your benefit. Furthermore consideration will be taken of an insurers premium rates at the time. You have the right to cancel any indexations increases provided this is requested within thirty days of the increase.