It is a sad fact that many of us will know someone who has suffered from a critical illness. Despite medical advances, critical illness is still all too common. Critical illness conditions include such things as cancer, heart attacks, strokes, multiple sclerosis, leukaemia, and total permanent disability.Being diagnosed with a critical illness doesn't only spell emotional and physical turmoil. It can also mean financial disaster. If you are unable to work due to a critical illness, or if you have to give up work to look after a child with a serious medical condition, you could quickly find yourself struggling to meet your financial commitments such as
mortgage and other regular bills. And all this at a time when you may be having to find additional money to pay for medical treatment or costs of ongoing medical care.
With little support available from State - less than £60 per week if qualify for Disability Living Allowance and just over £70 per week if you qualify for long-term Incapacity Benefit - you could soon find yourself in serious financial trouble.
Fortunately, there are steps you can take to help protect yourself from financial implications of suffering from a critical illness. Whilst doctors get on with their job of looking after your health, critical illness insurance can help you avoid worrying about money and leave you free to concentrate on getting better.
Critical illness insurance provides you with a substantial tax-free cash lump sum if you are diagnosed with a serious illness. Different policies cover different ranges of medical conditions, but one thing they all have in common is that they will pay you your chosen level of benefit as a tax-free lump sum in event of your being diagnosed with one of insured conditions.
Providing critical illness cover for a sizeable sum is cheaper than you might imagine, and can make a huge difference to your quality of life in event of a serious illness. For example, once your claim is paid, you could use money to clear your mortgage or take a holiday to help aid your recovery.
It is easy to argue that anyone who has a mortgage should definitely take out critical illness protection, but same can apply to anyone who has regular financial commitments that they would find hard to meet in event of being unable to work following diagnosis of a serious medical condition. In fact, in many ways, critical illness cover is even more important than life insurance, because in this day and age, advances in medical science mean you are more likely to initially survive a critical illness than you are to die from it.
When you suffer a serious illness it can take a long time to recover. You may have to give up work completely to begin with, and it may be a number of years before you are fit enough to return to full time employment. If your critical illness leaves you with a permanent disability you may have to change career, thus leaving you with a lower salary than prior to your illness.
When deciding what level of critical illness cover to opt for, there are a number of factors to take into account. If you were in a position where you were unable to work for a number of years after your illness, then you might need to live off your critical illness benefit for longer than expected. Therefore, it is sensible to try to cover a sum at least four or five times your current annual salary. Remember to take into consideration your mortgage any other outstanding loans and credit card debts when deciding on a level of cover.
All critical illness policies have what is known as a survival period. This is length of time after you fall ill before your claim can be processed. This is normally in region of two to four weeks. Then insurer will need to gather medical evidence and reports from your doctors to ensure validity of your critical illness claim. This process can take a few weeks depending on amount of information required. The insurance companies who provide critical illness cover have specialist medical claims staff who will make every effort to get your benefit paid to you as quickly as possible.
