Critical Illness Cover for Cabin Crew

A safety net for when you need it most: Critical Illness Cover

The world of Critical Illness Cover has advanced significantly over recent years. With a range of providers and policies, and with a whole load of jargon thrown in the mix, it can be a challenge to know what we are buying. At The Financial Wing, we will only recommend quality, suitable products that you understand.

If you have the option on purchasing Critical Illness Cover through your employer, it is essential to consider how your medical history may affect the cover available. Why not use our free financial review service to compare this option alongside others in the open market.

The world of insurance is constantly evolving, but even more so when it comes to Critical Illness Cover (CIC). These policies have seen drastic changes for the better in recent years, with updated policies covering a wider range of medical conditions and free ‘add-ons’ to many policies. In particular, the cover available for children has seen some noticeable enhancements. For this reason, it is a good idea to review any aging policies.

It can be a challenge to understand industry jargon when exploring your options, so we explain some of the things to be considered below. However, our team are here to guide you along the way, and our advice in this area is provided free from any broker fee, with options available from the whole of the market.

If you already have a policy and would like to know how it compares, we can provide a comparison report that shows your policy coverage versus others currently available.

Considerations between employer and individual Critical Illness Cover?

All policies and providers differ; however, the following considerations are provided on a generic basis with our understanding of the most popular policies. Your individual circumstances are likely to differ, so this will be taken into account during a review of your policies with us.

How do premiums (the cost of your policy) change over time?

Guaranteed Premiums

There is no factoring in o of provider performance or claims history, for example. You may still opt-in for indexation, which protects your ‘sum assured’ (how much you are insured for), normally by RPI, which will see your premiums increase by a commensurate amount, to maintain the real value of your cover. But the overall cost of your cover will be protected for the life of the policy.

Reviewable Premiums

Whilst reviewable premiums could potentially reduce, they can also increase during the life of the policy, with revised premiums being dependent on factors such as the persons age and the insurers overall performance or claims history.
As the cost of premiums is up to the providers discretion in the future, there is a risk that premiums could rise significantly during the life of the policy

Age-costed Premiums

The cost of your premiums will increase as you get older, with more significant rises in later life. These can be on a guaranteed or reviewable basis.

If these are ever considered, we will always compare these with a policy that has no age-costed premiums to determine the most appropriate solution.

Are pre-existing medical conditions covered?

Normally, policies provided by large employers are put in place without any underwriting. Instead, it is common for pre-existing conditions, or any relatable condition to be excluded from cover (without any adjustment to the premium).

For this reason, anyone with a pre-existing condition or medical declaration (including appointments, investigations or treatments) should consider a tailored individual plan.

Depending on the circumstances, individual policies can:

cover those conditions without amendment
apply a rating to the premium (an additional cost on top)
exclude a condition, sometimes commensurate with a discount on the premium.

Every provider is different in their approach to underwriting, so you may well find that what is unacceptable for one, could be acceptable to another.

How easy is it to make a claim?

Some policies require claims to satisfy the review of a providers Chief Medical Officer, whereas others accept the diagnosis of a doctor or other medical professional. All providers are different and not only the process, but the reputation and payout statistics are also important considerations.

What conditions are covered?

It can be misleading to count the number of headline conditions covered. Like with most things, the devil is in the detail, so it’s important to consider the requirements of a successful claim for any given ‘headline’ (this is often what differentiates the higher quality providers from the rest). We can help you with this by producing a comparison report that examines policy definitions in an easy to understand format.

What happens when you leave or change employer?

As is the case with all employer benefits, there may be the option of transferring onto a similar arrangement with the provider. Others are solely group providers, so you may need to replace this with an individual policy at the point you leave your employer.

It is worth considering the implications of doing so, and if you anticipate this as a possibility, consider the cost effect of applying for a policy at an older age and potentially with more medical disclosures needing to be declared.

As the policy would have been taken out with no reference to your employer, your policy would continue uninterrupted.

Leaving your employment, alone, would not give rise to any further underwriting process.

What happens if I die because of a Critical Illness?

These policies are often standalone policies for Critical Illness only.

This means that, providing you survive a Critical Illness for a minimum survival period (often 14 or 28 days), your policy would pay out.

If you were to die within the minimum survival period, the policy would not pay out.

Often, for the same cost, individual policies can be taken out on a ‘Life or Earlier Critical Illness’ basis.

This means that if you had a Critical Illness and survived for the minimum survival period set out in the policy, the Critical Illness element of your cover would pay out.

If you were to die within the minimum survival period, the Life element of the policy would pay out.