Life And Critical Illness Insurance
It is a sad fact that even if we live a healthy lifestyle, as we get older we are more prone to sickness; fortunately, the benefits of critical illness insurance are being experienced by many people who have seen this make a big difference just when they needed it. After all, you are providing for the financial needs of your family in the future if something untoward happens where you will no longer be around to help them in person.
Research has shown that planning for critical illness is a wise move as statistically the chance of this happening is actually high, so much so that insurance providers now offer this type of policy quite routinely.
These studies make for somber reading when you consider around one in five men will contract one of these conditions before they reach retirement age. For women, this figure is slightly lower with only one in six being affected by before retirement.
Insurance companies are of the opinion that because people do not believe it will happen to them or there is general ignorance about the subject that these could be the reasons why so few people arrange critical illness insurance for themselves. Those that take out critical illness cover normally do so to help pay their mortgage repayments if they are no longer able, but this type of plan can now be added directly to mortgage repayments.
Since the advent of the Internet as a marketing and sales tool, insurance companies have promoted their products online and in recent years there has been an increase in online insurance applications. Unfortunately, being a relatively new facility, there are new problems that occur as more companies start offering services over the Internet for the first time. Even if a policy is applied for online there is still the problem of organizing a physical examination as no insurance provider wants to have existing, possibly expensive medical conditions, to pay out for from the start. This is also for the benefit of the claimant because if they need to contact their critical illness insurance provider, they do not want to receive an insensitive person on the other end of the phone line.
Smokers are unfortunately treated as higher risk applicants; this includes anyone who has smoked within the previous year, and as a consequence they are placed in a high risk category. Insurance companies place smoking at the top of their list but other areas of your life can affect how much you pay for your premium like your age, physical health, activities you may participate in and the type of work you do.
Whilst critical illness insurance will not cure a person, the financial help it provides to a person who has a terminal illness cannot be dismissed. If you have family responsibilities then there can be no debate about the benefits of having an insurance plan set up and in place should the worst happen.