If you were to suffer from a critical illness such as cancer or a stroke you would be devastated and need to concentrate on your illness and yourself not have to worry about meeting bills.
Very often an illness such as this leaves you disabled and unable to work, however with the advancements in treatments today people are living longer and even recovering from a critical illness.
Critical illness insurance would allow you insure against the possibility of you suffering from one of the illness outlined in the policy.
You would have to check any policy you were considering taking out as they can differ in what protection they give.
One policy could include just about every illness known to man while another might just include the main core illnesses such as cancer, stroke, heart attack and kidney failure among others.
The amount of illnesses covered would reflect on how much a policy would cost.
There would also be exclusions in a policy which would have to be checked.
None evasive cancer of the skin and prostrate cancer which was not diagnosed as advanced would usually be excluded from the policy.
When looking for critical illness insurance you would be able to choose whether you wanted to take out the insurance over a fixed term, say taken out alongside your mortgage or you can take the cover for life.
If you took out the policy to protect the repayments of your mortgage you would insure for how much you had left to pay on your mortgage and for the term left on the mortgage.
As you paid off the mortgage over the years the payout would decrease inline with the balance left on your mortgage.
If you chose to take cover for life then you would insure an agreed amount and this is the sum that would be paid out if you suffered a critical illness, as long as you maintained the premiums.
One of the main factors that will decide how much you would be asked to pay for the premiums for critical illness insurance is your family history.
The provider will want a complete family history and if any members of your family have suffered from any major illnesses you could have to pay out more for premiums.
You would usually have to pay higher premiums if you smoke and drink so cutting down or preferably stopping can help you to make savings.
However if you have smoked in the past then to enjoy savings the provider will usually state that you have to be a none smoker for at least 1 year.
If you are overweight then you could also have to pay higher premiums than someone within the normal weight for height range.
When comparing critical illness insurance check to see if any children you have are included in the policy.
Often your policy will cover children against critical illness for no extra cost.
Always go over the small print of the policy with a fine tooth comb to ensure that you know what you would be able to claim for and what the limits are on the policy.
Finally to make life easier if you compare critical illness cover with a broker use the supplied key facts document when making a comparison.