India is experiencing an increasing trend to improving medical facilities and standards of living which is assisting in increased life expectancy, i.e. it is more likely that that individuals of current generation would be living longer than their grand parents. While this is good news, on the other hand more people have started to suffer from critical illnesses such as cancer, heart attack, stroke, tumors, alzheimers, etc. during their lifetime.
It is generally seen that not only the entire life’s savings gets depleted to get a person treated against critical illnesses, but it also makes a severe dent in the financial standing of the entire family if someone suffers from such illnesses. While a Critical Insurance cover may not take away the sufferings of the patient, but atleast it could take care of the financial impact of such illness to some extent. This cover can be procured either as a stand alone cover or as an additional rider with the life insurance policy.
How does the Critical illness insurance policy work? If a person who has a critical illness cover, is diagnosed with critical illness, the lumpsum payment mentioned in the policy is paid to the policy holder. The lumpsum amount can be used to pay off liabilities such as mortgage / home loans, paying medical expenses and maintaining the standard of living.
Care must be taken of the following points before taking a critical insurance cover:
- Reputation of the insurer;
- List of illness which are covered;
- The duration for which the policy holder would need to survive after diagnosis of the illness;
- Similar to other types of insurance policies, the premium payable on critical insurance policies would depend upon the age, medical history, amount of cover, etc.
For more details, please read our blog note Critical Illness Insurance