When would I be eligible to make a claim on critical illness insurance?

The reason for this is some people may take out critical illness insurance at a young age which is beneficial as the price is likely to be cheaper and you are more likely to get a contract at standard rates as you are less likely to have any health problems. However when you are younger and you may have just bought your first home which may have been the reason why you took out such insurance but you would have to consider that at some point in your life your circumstances may change and you may need to re address your financial commitments perhaps.

It is common for people to at some point in their life to want to buy a bigger house perhaps or a house with more garden for example as they are starting their family. This would be then when their financial circumstances would change as they would most likely need to take out a bigger mortgage and for most people this is fairly straightforward however you have to consider that your insurance would then leave you with a short fall if something were to happen to you in the future. You would therefore have to contact your financial adviser so that they could look into your old plan and see what needs to be done in order to ensure that you are insured for the right level of cover so that if you or your partner were to be diagnosed with a critical illness you would have the capability of paying off your mortgage which would then leave you with one less thing to think about.

You would be eligible to put in a claim on critical illness insurance the day you took out the insurance and the plan was put on risk. By putting a plan on risk with the insurance provider then means that you are then covered if diagnosed with a specified critical illness the next day. No matter if a claim was made on the first day of the plan going active or on the last day of your cover being active you would then be able to make a claim however they would need to consult the person whom diagnosed you with such an illness. If the claim is then made you would then receive the tax free lump sum.

To be eligible to make a claim on critical illness insurance you would need to make sure that you continued to pay your monthly direct debit to the insurance provider. You do not need to worry if you were to miss one months direct debit as an insurance provider would typically try and collect the outstanding premium fourteen days later after the payment was missed if for example it was due to lack of funds. If the direct debit had been closed then they would not be able to go back in for the payment and therefore you would need to set up a new direct debit and you would then typically pay two months premiums the following month however this is dependent on the insurance provider. Once the policy expires you would then not be eligible to make a claim but as long as your account was up to date by paying your premiums you would be eligible from day one.

Critical illness insurance should however be taken out including life insurance as you would typically need to survive fourteen days after being diagnosed with a critical illness for the claim to be made but if for example you did not survive those fourteen days then a payout would still be eligible under the life insurance aspect of the insurance, if you died from that critical illness.

It may be a good idea to search out a critical illness insurance specialist who can advise on this type of protection because of the underwriting.