It Takes A Few Minutes To Protect You For Life

Critical illness

What is it?

Critical illness insurance, otherwise known as critical illness cover or a dread disease policy, is an insurance product in which the insurer is contracted to typically make a lump sum cash payment should the claimant either die due to certain circumstances or contract a critical/life-threatening condition from a predefined list of illnesses. There are three main types of critical illness policies:

Standard Critical Illness

A standalone critical illness insurance policy will pay out a lump sum if you get a serious illness listed in the policy. Critical illness insurance is often bought with life insurance.

Combined Life & Critical Illness Cover

This type of insurance pays out a lump sum if you die or if you get a critical illness. You’ll usually get one payout, so if you claim for critical illness your life insurance cover will end..

Combined Life & Critical Illness Cover

With this type of product, you get enough life insurance and critical illness insurance to cover your mortgage. If you have a repayment mortgage then you can choose to get insurance which automatically decreases like your outstanding mortgage debt.

Five Star Defacto Insurers

at simply cover we receive preferential rates from leading uk insurers. our partners have the highest recorded payouts across the uk with zurich paying on 96% claims and aegon paying on 94% last year.

Leading Claim Amount

the average claim payout from our providers leads the market for critical illness last year alone aviva’s average claim was £76,365

Open Access

by entrusting simply cover to initiate or renew your critical cover you will be gaining access to life broker discounts not available on comparison sites.(dependent on requested cover)

Flexible Policies

you receive all available options from a cross market review to provide leading standard, decreasing and combined policies

Trust In Us.

Why Choose Critical Illness Insurance With Simply Cover

We search the UK market to find your cheapest quote. Simply Cover is one of the UK’s fastest growing life insurance brokers. We compare all the major providers as well as the smaller specialists, always ensuring you receive tailored pricing. Our services are free and without obligation and we always try and find you the cheapest price, if not we price match.

Get A Quote

Get Simply Covered

Looking For A Quote?

Get Simply Covered

Critical Illness Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any questions regarding life insurance, please read over the questions below before contacting a member of our team. 

Critical illness insurance will pay out if you get one of the specific medical conditions or injuries listed in the policy.

But be aware that not all conditions are covered and policy will also state how serious the condition must be.

Don’t confuse critical illness cover with life insurance, although they are sometimes sold together.

Every year, 1m workers in the UK unexpectedly find themselves unable to work because of injury or illness, according to the ABI (2015).

Examples of critical illnesses that might be covered include:

  • stroke
  • heart attack
  • certain types and stages of cancer
  • conditions such as multiple sclerosis.

Most policies will also consider permanent disabilities as a result of injury or illness.

It only pays out once and then the policy ends.

Some policies will make a smaller payment for less severe conditions, or if one of your children has one of the specified conditions.

Some serious illnesses might not be covered, for example, some cancers and conditions not listed in the policy.

You probably won’t be covered for health problems you knew you had before you took out the insurance, and this type of insurance doesn’t pay out if you die.

What’s covered and what’s not, will be set out in the policy details so make sure you’re fully aware of them and that they cover your needs.

State benefits might not be enough to replace your income if something goes wrong and you can’t work because of long-term sickness or disability.

If you’re eligible, Employment and Support Allowance ranges from around £70 to just over £100 a week, depending on your circumstances and the seriousness of your illness or disability.

You should look at getting critical illness cover if:

  • you don’t have enough savings to tide you over if you become seriously ill or disabled
  • you don’t have an employee benefits package to cover a longer time off work due to sickness.

Your monthly payments will depend on a number of factors, including:

  • age
  • the amount of cover you take out
  • whether you smoke or have previously smoked
  • health (your current health, your weight, your family medical history)
  • job (some occupations carry a higher risk than others and might mean you have to pay more each month.

Like any insurance product, this all comes down to circumstance, your criteria and what you actually need to protect. To help you to further decide what could be your best option there are a couple of brief points on the available critical illness products:

Just Critical Illness: Pros: generally more affordable; Cons: works best with life insurance so your monthly payments will be higher than one policy alone

Combined life insurance and critical illness cover: Pros: A more affordable alternative to getting two separate policies; Cons: you’ll only get one payout

Critical cover as part of mortgage protection: Pros: your mortgage is paid off in full if you die or are diagnosed with a critical illness; Cons: pays out for death or critical illness, but there’s only one payout

More Than Just Life Insurance

Latest News