When you take out the critical illness insurance cover, your insurance provider assures you of financial support if you’re diagnosed with a specified set of illnesses. Hence, paying the necessary premiums replaces the need to set aside personal savings, which you’d otherwise use to take care of potential diagnosis of a life-threatening condition.
Even so, like all other types of insurance policies, you need to be keen on what the cover entails before entering into the contract. Failure to which you might make costly mistakes that could hinder you from benefiting should a risk occur.
Luckily, we created this guide to highlight the four most common mistakes to beware of when purchasing the critical illness cover:
Assuming that all policies cover the same critical illnesses
The critical illness policy you are possibly looking to buy may differ from another person’s. Wondering why?
For starters, different applicants have varying risk levels of acquiring the specified critical illnesses. The differences in lifestyle, genetic composition, and other circumstances predisposing them to the risk account for this variance.
What’s more, insurers lack a shared list of critical illnesses. While they all take care of ailments considered to be life-threatening, each can have a different list from the other.
NOTE: The three common critical illnesses this policy recognizes are heart attack, advanced stages of some cancers, and stroke. Other than that, insurers can also cover intensive surgical procedures involving organ transplants, traumatic head injury treatment, and other conditions that require admission in ICU.
Forgetting to ask about extra benefits
When buying an expensive policy like the critical illness cover, you might assume or expect it to have extra benefits.
For example, the best plans can offer a partial payout when your children, who are 21 or younger, fall ill before you do. Such support allows you to extend your critical illness cover to those who depend on you and are similarly vulnerable to the predetermined risk.
Also, some insurers provide extra benefits by facilitating the post-treatment procedures which might accelerate your journey to wellness. Such may include access to counselors to help you deal with psychological trauma or specialized nurses to monitor your recovery at home.
Before buying the policy, find out whether the insurance provider offers these kinds of additional benefits. If they do, inquire about how they work, the caveats, and any relevant information that affects your primary benefit.
Insurance double up
Before taking out any form of insurance cover, even for critical illnesses, you should first be sure you need it. Consider other policies that you have previously bought or subscribed to and the benefits that they offer.
Purchasing a critical illness policy when you have another form of insurance that can cover you if you fall critically ill would be a waste of money. No one wants to pay twice for the same thing yet people make that mistake when they don’t examine carefully their other policies.
Avoiding this mistake is as simple as finding out the details of each of your existing insurance policies. For example, some employers can still pay their employees during a long-term sickness. If you’re under such a scheme, getting the critical illness cover may not be necessary. Moreover, you could have enough savings to keep you afloat during the dark moments of an illness.
Withholding information
One of the insurance principles requires the parties involved in the insurance contract to exercise utmost good faith. It’s a mistake to withhold key information deliberately.
As the insured party, you must be honest when declaring any requested information since the insurer relies on it when drafting your policy. Usually, they need to know about any treatment history, activity, circumstance, or lifestyle that might increase your risk of a critical illness.
Similarly, the insurance firm must be clear and truthful on the implications of the policy’s terms and conditions. Also, it should allow the insured to exercise the right to consult a legal authority for comprehension of the policy’s definitions.
Failure to declare key information by both parties potentially affects the validity of the policy as well as its benefits. A common consequence for non-disclosure is the insurer denying the policyholder their right to claim.
Conclusion
The surest way to avoid the above four mistakes is to understand how the critical illness policy works. Don’t hesitate to consult an expert to assist you in decoding the intricacies of this insurance contract.
