|
Home | Automotive | Insurance
Do I need critical illness insurance and what is it? 
By: Chris Clare
As part of your overall financial planning it may be of benefit to consider the option of critical illness insurance cover, what it entails, and whether it would be important with regards to your family and loved ones future financial peace of mind.
The subject of life insurance is common knowledge and indeed many people are aware of its importance with regard to their personal financial planning, especially if they have a loan or mortgage policy to insure. But the problem is that far fewer are aware of critical illness cover and its importance with regards to their personal financial planning.
Critical illness is a completely unique form of insurance cover. It can be added to your existing policy as an extra or can be taken out independently as a form of insurance policy in its own right. Its specific purpose is to provide cover which will pay out the sum of money insured to the insurer should one of any number of critical illnesses deem them unable to work, such as cancer, heart attack, major organ transplant, stroke, and the list goes on.
The major thing to note is that payout of the insured amount is not dependent on any outcome of these critical conditions. That is to say, you do not have to die from one of these terrible illnesses for there to be a payout. You simply have to have suffered from the condition. As an example, you could suffer a heart attack and consequently see the policy pay out the insured sum, but could in fact go on to make a full and long enduring recovery, a not uncommon possibility with today's modern medicine.
So you can see just how beneficial this benefit can be, whether taken out as a separate policy or as an additional benefit to an existing one. But what type of policies can it be added to? Well it can run in conjunction with whole of life and level term insurance and, more importantly, mortgage protection.
It is with mortgage life insurance and protection that critical illness cover is the most beneficial. When taking out your mortgage you will probably have already considered arranging for the mortgage to be paid off should you die, but what if you suffer a heart attack or severe stroke and don't die but are rendered incapable of earning for several months? By taking out critical illness cover, you will have taken care of this possibility. The policy will pay for any ongoing debts such as mortgage repayments and loans leaving you able to convalesce and recover with no unpleasant monetary worries to impede you.
Critical illness has generally been thought of as a privilege of the wealthy alongside mortgage life insurance. What we mean is that people only really take it out if they have extra cash to afford it, and most people feel they have other more pressing things to spend their money on. Unfortunately people miss the point of how beneficial this sort of cover can be. Once the payout has covered any debts, the extra money can be a nice bonus to be spent on home improvements, a once in a lifetime holiday, or whatever may take your fancy.
In conclusion, critical illness is a much more useful form of cover than you think. Some people consider it better even than life insurance as you can get to see the benefits of it without having to die. This type of cover is definitely recommended with mortgages and loans, but at the end of the day only you can decide if critical illness is what you think you need or can afford. The best plan of action is to speak with your financial advisor to discuss your options so that you have the right sort of cover and level of protection for you.
Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles
Get the best from your life cover plan use the experts for free online low cost quotes for life insurance cover
This article is available as a unique content article with free reprint rights.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License, which means you may freely reprint it, in its entiretly, provided you include the author's resource box along with LIVE links (without "nofollow" tags).
| 
