What’s the News with Critical Illness Insurance?

Critical illness is nothing that we’d like to face at any point in our lives. Because the possibility of developing an illness can never be eradicated entirely, it is important that one takes precautions.

Only then, one is able to make key financial decisions. Taking on the suitable insurance plan now – while you are healthy – is one of the ways to make up for some of the unexpected costs that might be brought about by a critical illness. And that is the reason why there are half a million such policies active in Canada.

Life-and-death conditions are but a slice of the story. Even if one exceeds the originally estimated elimination period, the insurance company may take time to review the claim. One of the measures taken, for example, is to validate whether the insured knew of the illness at the time of application.

The latest news is that a few Critical Illness insurers in Canada bring forward an automatic increase benefit rider. This rider works to augment the policy’s critical illness insurance benefit at scheduled intervals. These automatic increases also mean that the monthly premiums in accordance with the benefit increase.

RBC Insurance, for one, offers its clients a biannual Automatic Increase Benefit Rider. This rider provides the insured with an opportunity to add to her or his benefit every second insurance policy anniversary until the rider terminates.

What is more, during the initial ten years of the policy, the insured person can boost their benefit amount without having to provide additional proof of his or her insurability. The amount is going to be equal to 20% of the originally agreed-upon policy benefit. This means the actual coverage can increase by 100% this way.

One caveat: RBC automatic increases may not be deferred or missed. In case the customer declines an increase, the add-on automatically terminates. Though, previous increases and corresponding increased premiums will still be in effect.

Speaking of inter-insurer variances Canada Life draws a distinction between cigar and pipe smokers in that they classify cigar and pipe smokers as if they were non-smokers for the purposes of critical illness and disability plans. This fact has a great potential to cut down the total price.

Check out for recommended reading about Critical Illness insurance: How Equitable Life Insurance reworked Critical Illness Plan for kids.

Various Insurance Policies Clarified

Today, we will take a peek at several types of insurance products offered to all of us that many are oblivious to. My short list should give you an overview of what is available out there.

American Insurance Company Building in Newark, New Jersey by wallyg

Mortgage Life Insurance

Kicking off with what is a terrible product: Mortgage life insurance. This idea obliges you to pay for coverage that weakens as you go. This means that the more cash you pay in, the more risk remains uncovered. This is such a bad deal that no one should ever agree to, since there are dramatically better means of insuring the household to offset the risk of default.

Bump Up Remuneration using Group Insurance

Employee benefits have the potential to engage HR managers for a long time. There are simply countless combinations of various perks and it is very hard to pick the ones your people will enjoy most. To top it off, the costs of employee benefits have been making it crucial that companies’ choices are as financially efficient as possible.

When you have acquainted yourself with the available combinations, look for perks your employees will prefer. Be open with them and give them several options to select from in a simple survey or take a look at their claims history and search for major examples of behaviour. Record and consult your approach and progress with an expert group specialist to prevent ordinary mistakes and boost the efficacy of the process.

No-medical Life Insurance

Guaranteed issue life insurance is a specific category of life insurance that is available to almost any applicant regardless of her or his medical history. This includes patients with lethal illnesses, patients with AIDS, and patients with unhealthy habits, such as smoking or drug abuse.

Insurance companies will accept almost anyone and they will ask only a few or no medical questions during the application process. Because this practice exposes insurers to much greater risk, the cost will show this and will be considerably more costly than with traditional life insurance plans. Also, the maximum coverage sum will typically be topping at several thousand dollars, whereas traditional agreements may easily reach anywhere up to millions of dollars. In addition no medical and simplified issue life insurance plans will contain exclusions in order to protect the underwriter from “abuse” by people who are extremely close to death. These are all sacrifices that you will have to make if you do not qualify for mainstream life insurance plans but want to be covered to a certain extent.

Life Insurance to Compensate for Detrimental Impact of Earthquakes

In the aftermath of the earthquake near the Japanese islands and the devastation it brought into the country of the rising sun, we looked into the exposure of Canadians to earthquakes and the ways we can protect ourselves.  The events in Japan make us feel very strongly for survivors and victims alike.

Quakes are lethal and emotionally disturbing.  This is most certainly the case in Japan, where the Sendai quake registered a 9.0 reading on the Richter scale and thus was the 5^th strongest quake recorded in the history. The magnitude, however, is not really the most important either, because even a less momentous earthquake originating within an inhabited area may come to be more serious than a forceful occurrence happening in the middle of the Pacific.  The last earthquake in Canada could be noticed not that long ago, taking place just a few months ago on June 23^rd, 2010 between Québec and Ontario.  The thing nobody wants to worry about after living through something like an earthquake is paying for picking up the shattered pieces – this is where life insurance coverage can come in very handy.

We enquired five chief Canadian insurance companies and all of these will cover death in the event of a disaster.  The insured, however, mustn’t be hit by the disaster while visiting specifically prohibited locations.

The prevalence of natural disasters of huge significance steadily rises.  It was hardly a few weeks prior to the quake in Sendai that swaths of Australia were under water.

While no more than 75,000 lives were lost yearly during the 1990s, compared to 86,328 each year during the eighties, an average of 211 million people were directly affected by natural disaster in the 90s – up from 147 million in the eighties.

The number of natural disasters has tripled since the 60s and, even worse, the monetary effect has amplified by a factor of nine in that same time.

Death due to an earthquake is increasingly possible all the time, so in Canada, life insurance that helps when someone dies in an earthquake is only a natural choice.