Critical Illness Insurance: Here’s Help When You Get Sick
How you can use the proceeds from the critical illness policy:
- Paying for treatment
- Covering the household’s day to day expenses
- Paying off the mortgage
- Paying for a carer or at-home nurse
- Equipping the home with adaptive equipment or buying a wheelchair or other appropriate
- equipment
Cancer, the need for an organ transplant or a debilitating stroke... These are just some of the serious illnesses that we dread. What happens then, when you get diagnosed with such a dangerous illness?
Well, if you are covered with critical illness insurance, you can expect a lump sum when you are diagnosed with an illness that is included in the policy’s list. This lump sum is usually equivalent to a selected face amount and is paid to you, the person insured, and not to your beneficiaries.
This means that you have the freedom and flexibility to spend the lump sum however you like. Although it is aimed primarily at helping you with your medical expenses, the money is really at your disposal.
Don't miss:
- Top 5 reasons why a critical illness claim is denied
- Do critical illness insurers really pay out: what the statistics shows
- Top 10 critical illnesses that will pay out
- When are you suspected to get critically ill?
Covered Critical Illnesses
Critical illness insurance usually covers the following illnesses (List may vary from provider to provider):
- Alzheimer’s disease (for those under 60 years old and should cause permanent symptoms)
- Heart attack or heart disease requiring aorta graft surgery, coronary artery by-pass grafts or heart valve repair or replacement
- Benign brain tumour
- Blindness or deafness that is total and irreversible
- Cancer (for advanced cases, other cancers are also excluded)
- Coma
- HIV
- Kidney failure (requiring dialysis)
- Loss of one or more limbs or paralysis thereof
- Loss of speech that is total and irreversible
- Major organ transplant
- Motor Neurone Disease
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Parkinson’s disease (occurring before age 60)
- Stroke
- Third degree burns (for at least 20% of the surface area of the body)
- Traumatic head injury
Are you concerned with any of these critical illnesses? Here’s more information about the critical illnesses you may be susceptible to.
Criteria for Payment
- For the lump sum to be payable, the insured has to survive a waiting period, usually 14 to 30 days.
- The serious illness that the insured is diagnosed with should fall within the definition of the policy for it to be payable.
- The critical illness insurance will also pay if the insured becomes totally and permanently disabled and has to survive the waiting period. In this case, the waiting period is usually three to six months.
Payment Details
Please take note that for this type of policies, payment is made only once. When there is a payment provided either for a serious illness or total disability, the coverage will end. No more payments will be given. For more information about making a critical illness claim read Dos and Don’ts when making claims.
Other providers also provide partial payments for some illnesses such as prostate cancer or breast cancer. Most providers also tack on Children’s Critical Illness cover (learn more about covering your child by reading the Children’s Critical Illness article).
To protect yourself and your family, save up to 35%, please fill the critical illness cover + life insurance form on the right now.
Recommended useful information to read:
- Dos and Don’ts when making critical illness insurance claims
- What you should know about your critical illness cover: the exclusions to your policy
- Things to consider before getting a critical illness insurance policy
- Are you at risk? Critical illnesses you may be susceptible to
- Save up on premiums: factors that affect your critical illness insurance premiums