Are you covered under Critical illness Insurance?

These days, Life and health insurance have gained a lot of acceptance. However, the same is not the case with critical illness insurance.

Many people think that their regular health insurance is enough to take care of all types of illnesses and they are unaware of critical illness insurance policy. The regular health insurance products offered by insurance companies are not comprehensive. They generally cover around 15 to 20 illnesses excluding ailments like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, congenital heart disease, cerebral stroke, chronic liver, Hepatitis B, HIV and AIDS, kidney diseases, loss of hearing, and other physical disabilities.

Critical illness plans can prove to be a lifesaver for those who are diagnosed with a serious and long-term illness that requires expensive treatment. The policy often covers diseases like cancer, organ transplant, heart attack, stroke, renal failure, and paralysis, among others. The insurance company will specify a list of diseases and corrective measures in the policy document that qualifies as critical illness.

A critical illness insurance plan is a policy that pays the insured a lump sum amount covered under the policy following the diagnosis of an illness covered under the plan. The policy is beneficial to policyholders for exorbitant medical expenses for critical illnesses.

Life Insurance companies and General insurance or health insurance companies offer critical illness insurance either as a rider along with regular health insurance plans or as stand-alone products. Life insurance companies offer critical illness insurance as riders along with term insurance or endowment plans. Buying critical illness coverage as a rider comes with many limitations for payments. There is a restriction on the term of critical illness rider depending on the term of a base policy. However, the Stand-alone critical illness policy does not have such restrictions. These plans are more flexible in terms of cover amount and duration of the policy. The policies available with multiple tenure and sum insured options which vary from Insurer to insurer.

The waiting period for critical illness varies from one insurance company to another and can range from 30 days to 90 days or more. The waiting period is the period during which the policyholder cannot claim critical illness. It is important to understand the waiting period before buying a critical illness insurance policy.

If the policyholder is diagnosed with a critical illness, then he/she needs to wait for the survival period mentioned in the policy (normally about 2 weeks) to get over before filing a claim. The insurer will require details of the diagnosis and reports and will verify it. On successful verification, the sum assured is credited to the policyholder’s account.