Critical Illness Insurance – Another Scam?
Critical illness insurance has been a hot topic in recent years, with many people claiming that it is a scam. However, in this post I'll show you how to spot the difference between real and fake Critical Illness Insurance and the benefits of having CI insurance.
In our society, we have all come to expect that we can be compensated for any problems we find ourselves a part of. When events take place that are out of our control or when things just don't seem fair, there is usually somebody who will offer us money for our troubles.
Life insurance has been around for almost as long as life itself, and it is a very popular form of insurance these days. I have read about some insane life insurance policies.
The most interesting one I found was for a guy in India who insured his wife for 500 million rupees to the benefit of his friend, should he suddenly die. Critics called it an irresponsible policy, and indeed it was.
Lack of due diligence on behalf of the man who had insured his wife cost him dearly when she decided that filing bankruptcy was her best way out of financial troubles. She ended up with 100 million rupees (about $1 million USD).
The most interesting question is why was she paid so much money? The only reason for that is the fact that this woman's husband was a famous Bollywood actor and director.
Even though I don't like such stories, they are very good examples of how our society works. The movie star or sportsman are rich and famous enough to be offered insurance policies of this magnitude. I doubt that lots of regular people can get such large insurance policies. But it is still possible to get really good small life insurance policies, especially when you are young and healthy.
In my case, I have been in search for cheap life insurance for some time now, but the premiums have been very high no matter what company I have tried.
I have also heard people say that they have bought a life insurance policy for their spouse only to discover that the benefits were too low to make the cost worth paying. They vowed to never get involved in such a scam again. How do we avoid such situations?
This is where Critical Illness Insurance comes into play. This type of insurance gives you coverage if you are diagnosed with a certain number of illnesses… I'm not going to spoil the surprise or go into detail, but I will share this with you.
The first thing is that there are two different types of CI Insurances: Personal and Companion.
The companion policy you can buy for your spouse or family members as well as for your friends. The Personal one is meant for yourself and there is only one thing that you can insure…
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's talk about the Companion policies first. There are 3 basic things that will determine the cost of a CI policy:
The age of the insured person. The number of people you want to cover with this insurance. The illnesses that are covered.
There are health problem related-insurances (Heart/Cancer/Diabetes), critical illness-only policies and term life with CI riders (if you die during the term, the money will be paid out).
The best part is that you don't need a medical exam in order to buy any of these policies. In most cases, the insurance company will ask you to fill in a questionnaire or two and an underwriter will decide if your policy can be approved or not.
If you have found the right company, they may only ask for your age, the amount of coverage and your telephone number and they will take care of everything else for you. As long as it is a reputable company, anything can happen, so I recommend getting as much information as you can before making up your mind about anything.
For example, this one company is offering the level of coverage that I want and they only require a telephone number in order to get an approval. This means that they will call you back within 24 hours and you can give them your information over the phone. You don't have to meet them or anything like that. Very convenient, very interesting!
The other option is to find out as much information as possible about a company before approaching them. You can start by going through some independent site which will show you the ratings and reviews of each insurance company.
I have tried using this method on many occasions and I've never had any bad experience with it yet. You need to be very careful about some companies though. For example, I have heard that the companies who are giving out the lowest prices may not be worth it, so quality and price have to go hand-in-hand.
You can expect that they will be approved right away if you are an adult aged 35 or younger and you don't want any of your family members. You can buy CI insurance policies as a single person (instead of having a partner), most companies won't mind even if you are an adult with no children. I always prefer to buy the whole family at once because buying individual policies for each family member is a lot more expensive than just buying one Family policy for all of them.
There are also many other type of insurance policies for you to insure yourself with. If you want to learn more about those, visit the United Kingdom Guide to Insurance. This guide has some really good information about all types of insurance that you can buy in the UK which might help you out if you are thinking about buying life and critical illness insurance in the UK.
What do I want to insure myself with? Well, let's see… what is my current financial status? And how old am I (what are my chances)? Let's check these things!
Sometimes when I feel uncertain at all times, I always turn to what we call "The Book". It's a book that has been handed down for generations now. In this present day and age, the name of the book is called The Bible. It's a very important book for many people and it contains very wise words that can help solve our problems.
The Bible mentions several things in relation to insurance and how we should not get too anxious about anything that we do. This means that we shouldn't worry about bad things happening to us.
Conclusion
I hope that you have found this post helpful. If you have, leave me a comment below! I will appreciate any feedback, and I will respond to you right away! :) Special thanks goes to all the people who helped contributing to this article. You guys are amazing! I hope that whoever is interested in buying life insurance policies can benefit from this helpful article too.