The diagnosis of a critical illness can be scary, confusing, and overwhelming but most times, critical illness insurance can help cushion the effects.
Ideally, this payment can help pay the costs associated with the diagnosis, hospital stay, and possible treatments you may receive. So, when life decides to throw this curveball at you, you and your loved ones won’t get fully hit by the effect.
What is critical illness insurance?
Critical illness insurance is designed to protect people against specific emergency medical conditions. This back-end insurance kicks in when a person is diagnosed with a critical illness. This insurance might be the only thing that can put back a smile on your face.
Critical illness insurance adds a layer of confidence and financial security such that, you do not get to the point of becoming penniless at the lowest time of your life.
Of course, except you can pay for the outrageous medical fees out of your pocket, diagnosis of critical illness plans does not only hurt your body but also plan to drain your pocket. But as it stands, this insurance does not cover all kinds of critical illnesses
Is Critical Illness Insurance a Good Idea?
This type of insurance is an important product for those who are at risk of developing a critical illness. The insurance provides peace of mind and financial security in the event that a policyholder is diagnosed with a covered condition.
Furthermore, this coverage provides a lump sum payment to the insured on the diagnosis of a covered condition. As a matter of fact, normal health insurance does not stand a chance when a critical illness decides to rear its head. Instead, you stand a better chance with the more appropriate coverage.
Interestingly, this plan has a very low cost. For coverage of this magnitude, the cost is just as low as possible. But this depends solely on the number of illnesses you expect your plan to cover. Then again, not forgetting your provider’s policy.
These conditions qualify for a critical illness coverage:
- Multiple sclerosis
- Cancer
- Heart conditions
- Stroke
- Organ transplant
- Paralysis
- Dementia
- Severe burns
- Coma
- Coronary bypass
- Connective tissue disorder
- Brain damage
What to Consider Before Buying critical illness insurance
In the event of these pocket-draining ailments, critical illness insurance pays for specific treatments to help a patient recover and recover quickly. More so, this insurance pays out a lump sum, typically between $20,000 to $100,000, to the policyholder. This is to help cover the cost of treatments not covered by regular health insurance.
Meanwhile, you must consider the policy providers and what is in the policy plan before you commit yourself. Be sure to take a look at the type of illness they consider critical enough to cover. Again, some companies take off their coverage for people of some certain age.
Therefore, make sure everything you might need to be comfortable in the event of an illness is written out boldly and signed. You just can’t be dealing with your health and be worried sick about the bills.
Insurance for people with critical illness
For starters, the customer satisfaction for this insurance in the U.S. is 8.3 on a scale of 10, which is 17 points higher than the overall customer satisfaction rate for the insurance industry.
Secondly, not all diseases that are covered by critical illness insurance are life-threatening. However, some diseases can still be extremely severe. With the right insurance, you get a guarantee to have protection for yourself financially, from the risk of suffering from a specific disease and paying hugely by yourself.
This insurance helps to pay for expensive treatments as well as costs associated with having to be away from home. Not only that, your plan can cover your daily expenditure, wheelchair services, and vacations when recovering.
The plan also gives you a lump sum payment that can cover costs like mortgage payments and other expenses. In essence, this has more clauses than the well-known regular health insurance.
What next?
Most people like to plan for the good and the bad. Normally, they call it being ahead of events. While some think of this style as a pessimistic view of life, others believe that it is realistic.
Moving forward, critically ill people might go-ahead to secure the future. Not for themselves now, but for the people, they will leave behind, should they not make it out of their illness.
So, in that event, people will not be heartbroken and stranded at the same time.
Key Person Insurance
To continue, in the event that a critically ill person is sure not to make it. This insurance becomes the next alternative. That is if he or she has an existing and thriving company and a key person in that company.
So to speak, the key person insurance policy provides coverage to a business in the event of a key person’s death. The benefit is that the company will receive cash injections for the business to continue operating.
For example, if an owner dies, key person insurance will cover the business for a certain amount. So, a business can still have cash flow even if the key person dies.
Mortgage protection insurance
Mortgage protection insurance is another form of compensation for the loved ones you left behind. Obviously, it would not be nice to have your family moved out of their comfort zone while still dealing with your loss.
That is why mortgage protection insurance is designed to protect your mortgage in the event of your death. This insurance pays the balance of your mortgage off for your survivors.
Critical illness insurance pros and cons
Pros
-It covers more than the regular health insurance coverage
-Low cost
-Lump-sum of money to even pay for excesses like a vacation
Cons
-Does not cover all critical illnesses
-May not cover a sickness that reoccurred
-May have an age limit clause
Top critical illness insurance companies
- Guardian Life
- Aflac
- Liberty Mutual
- MetLife
- Breeze
- AIG direct
- Mutual of Omaha
- UnitedHealthcare
- Bharti AXA General Insurance Company
- Prudential
- BenefitHub
