Summary
The incentives provided by life insurance cover are weighed against the benefits of critical illness cover. The arguments for taking out critical illness insurance cover.

Ask yourself this question ‘Could you afford to pay your monthly financial commitments if illness prevented you from working?’ Most of us would say ‘No’. So evidently we need to think about taking out insurance against the worst happening. A normal critical illness policy would pay out a tax free lump sum if the policyholder is diagnosed with a potentially life threatening illness. The lump sum can be spent in any amount of  ways. For instance, you could make alterations to your home to accommodate a wheelchair,simply settle your bills or pay off your mortgage.

The next few weeks will see a rise in price, so if you haven’t got any insurance cover at the moment, now is the time to get insured. The price of life insurance has come down over the past 10 years. There are many reasons why this has occurred. To start with the Aids epidemic, which was expected in 1980-1985 never occurred and secondly the survival rate of those suffering from heart attacks and cancer has significantly improved. These reasons have enabled insurers. Protection is often reviewed by insurers, when the amount of claims for certain conditions are assessed. Following such a review AXA will be modifying premiums shortly, with the price of life cover decreasing slightly and the premiums for critical illness cover increasing. The Insurance Company is unable to say by how much, as the client’s circumstances and the amount insured for differ from person to person, but the rise should not be massive.

Then again Best Deal  is predicting that there could be price rise of between 25 and fifty two per cent in critical illness insurance payments in the near future. It also fears that fixed premiums may also become too expensive for many, or even cease to exist because of the unstable marketplace. Our advice is go online if you want life insurance cover.

Swiss Re has announced that it is refusing to underwrite critical insurance policies from the end of December as the policies are costing them too much.

The price of cover has been put up by two major insurance companies.  A twenty to twenty five per cent increase has recently been announced by Swiss Life and L & G. Nevertheless this is very little compared to the staggering increases written into the policies now presented by BUPA and Friend’s Provident, which differ between 40 to 50%. So if you want a quote for better life insurance, go online.

It is feared that this trend will be followed by other re-insurers. Fixed monthly preiums where the monthly price is held for a specific period, typically 12 years, may no more be given by Insurance Companies.  Henceforth, rates will be re-evaluated yearly, just like car and home and contents insurance. The outlay for the customer will be much more in the long term. The message is crystal clear. Critical illness Insurance is growing more pricey so sign up now to gain from guaranteed premiums and the comparatively low prices being givenat the moment. Let us wish that you never need it, but data indicates that a very high proportion of us will.