See my post above - one client almost junked his policy then had a heart attack. We have never had a claim rejected by a life insurance company.

I feel that some of these scare stories ome from people trying to handle life assurance themselves. Its all very well buying life assurance from Tesco but when you actually need to claim Tesco don't want to know and the insurers give the public indian call centres to deal with which will give you a heart attack just trying to deal with them.

IFAs deal with insurers every day and will fight tooth and nail if an insurer cuts up rough. IMHO, you get what you pay for.

PM me if you want to Lee.

When I last looked at Critical Incident insurance, from the perspective of a doctor, it had what might appear to some as an impressive looking list of conditions which they covered. However, my question was, "What if I get something that isn't on the list and I cannot work?" So income protection insurance was my choice instead so it would pay out if I could not work in my usual occupation due to ill health with sensible exceptions, not just a small list of conditions.

PHI does a different job to CI.

You can have what is known as "waiver" on CI so if you became ill but isn't covered then the premium would be paid by the insurer - either until you died or the end of the term of the policy (or you got better) It doesn't provide you with an amount of money but it sustains the policy.

PHI is a good product but doesn't suit everyone. (usually) Limited to 55% of current salary, only paid up to pension age, benefit isn't taxed but I believe its included when working out certain state benefit entitlement.

^^ They are in it to make money though rather than "help" out sick people. The strategy seems to be to take everyones premium, write an essay on Ts & Cs and exclusions then avoid paying out ...

Admit it, CI cover is a joke!

TX.

Thanks all. So many differing opinions.
I have not cancelled it yet as I am thinking "sods law" :D
The conversation came up at work the other day, hence the revival of the thread.
All most everyone at work said it was a waste of time and money.
The other half broke his toe quite a few months ago, he never told CI. The comments at work were, they would bring this up if ever a claim needed to be made.
I got the impression every single thing that happens illness wise, needs to be told to CI to continue the cover, is this the case????? I would not be happy about that.
I am doing this cash clean up as I feel we are paying far too much in various insurances etc.
Thanks again, folks. Invaluable advice as always :thumb:

Hi, I have just found this site and have read with interest the comments about "Critical Illness Insurance" but have noticed that not one person has pointed out that the Financial Institutions who sell these policies have known for years that they are "Flawed" and contain "Fluffy & Confusing Definitions" the same definitions they use to assess your claim.
Many senior personnel in these Financial Institutions also feel that vast majority of FAs do not fully understand these policies so they only find there are problems when a claim is made.
When figures showing that 20% of CI claims & 50% of TPD claims are rejected and comments like " No other industry would accept these sorts of statistics" it makes you wonder why they have been allowed to sell them for so long.
I could go on but hopefully what I have pointed out (All this information & More is readly available on the internet) will make you more aware of the pitfalls in insurance.

Source?

You may like to review the figures and of the CI claims, check to see how much of that 20% is due to non-disclosure. There are cases where the illness isn't covered and it is particularly unfair but these are very rare.

The TPD, I'll give you although again I'd like to see the source (Daily Mail doesn't count BTW)

As I said previously, in every instance I've been involved in regarding a claim, we've never had a claim rejected.

Odd first post too.

Edd

If none of your claims has ever been rejected could you tell me what company this is please.

Chip

Aviva - paid late and we made them pay interest and our costs.

Legal & General - paid on receipt of doctors report.

Admittedly both of these were heart attack cases so pretty much cut and dried. I won't deny that in some cases where the illness has been very severe the insurer hasn't paid out - I think one high profile case with Scottish Widows went to high court and Scottish Widows had to pay up.

I would only use providers that are independent from banks (scottish widows cleirical medical are part of lloyds hbos and I wouldn't use either) and would only use those that are IMO good at this sort of thing. Aegon Scottish Equitable, LV=, Legal & General, Aviva (if you want to risk the dire admin) I would avoid the less well known providers as I don't know their claim systems.

We've also had 3 terminal cases where the providers have paid on the basis the client would not survive 12 months. One client AFAIK is still alive and that was 2 years ago.

We've had about 4 or 5 death claims but there nothing the insurer can say when the client is dead.

Criticall Illness had become very expensive and I would always urge clients to pay close attention to the Key Features Document and make sure they are aware that not every single illness is covered.

We have one individual who has some very obscure illness which is terminal but I can't get two doctors to give him 12 months so I can get it paid. It is an odd illness but the provider in this instance has agreed it will honour the claim if and when it gets to that stage.

IIRC in Lee247s case its an older CI policy and these should be held on to - cheaper than anything you can have these days and covers more illnesses. i.e. testicle cancer isn't covered by all providers but it used to be - these days its quite treatable and usually an outpatient job - older CI policies will pay on this illness.

I have an whole of life CI policy which goes up every year inline with inflation. I started it at 22 ish at £50K for £12 and that is with me being a smoker and having used inhalers in the past although I don't actually have asthma. Its now £65K and £14 a month. The similar policy now would be £30 - £50.

Cheers Edd , thanks for the info.

Chip

I know one case where the person had something called an AVM on the spinal cord.
Critical illness didn't want to know - said it wasn't on the list (this was about 7 years ago).
Income protection eventually agreeded to pay, however every single year they "review it"
This results in a 36 page document which requires completing.

EDD,
The point I was trying to make was that in the last four years I have not come across one person who while purchasing a CI Policy was given any information about the concerns that the Insurance industry have.
Most people buy insurance in "Good Faith" which is the Governing Principle applicable to all contracts of insurance.
Good faith forbids either party by concealing what he privately knows to draw the other into a bargain from his ignorance of the fact and his believing the contrary.

"Odd first post":confused: I dont think so.

Too many posts for me to read, but I used www.theidol.com to get rates for ours as they came in quite good. I also know of someone who had to claim and got their mortgage paid because of the cancer they had (in the throat) and they should make a full recovery (and are near enough there now)

You pay your money you take your chance.