Critical Illness Insurance - Outrageous Premium Increase

W

wishiwasrich

Guest
Hi,

I have had a critical illness policy for over 16 years, paying about 40 euros a month for €140,000 worth of cover. Canada Life have just written to me that following a "policy review", as specified in my t&c's, I either have to bump up my premiums to €100 to maintain my cover, or accept reduced cover of €66,000. Sounds like a complete con to me.

I am pretty well covered on life insurance, I have disability cover with the job, and I can't see any point in continuing with this policy. Anyone got any thoughts or similar experiences?
 
Personally I think the proposal is reasonable. If you looked for a new CI policy you would be paying significantly more. You are being offered the new premium without doing a medical, and when you initially signed up to the policy there would have been a 'policy review date' triggered in, which normally coincides with the lenght of time oyu are on the olicy or the age of the customer.
You are much more likely to suffer a critical illness than death, I would advise you to keep it going at 100 month, if you can afford it. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face
 
As I've said before if you have VHI, PHI, and sufficient life assurance why bother with C.I?


p.s. Premiums for VHI and PHI and certain pension related life assurance qualify for generous tax reliefs too.
 
Critical illness can be important when you are self employed. That said I have never quite got around to putting it in place.
 
Thanks all for your feedback. I think that you may be correct in saying that a new CI policy would cost more, so perhaps I am being unfair to Canada Life.

I haven't decided yet, but am coming around to the view that, in my own situation where I have adequate life and disability cover, that I may not need CI. I can certainly see the benefit for someone who is self-employed. The risk for me of course is that I will lose the job and not get the same benefits again.....decisions decisions.
 
wishiwasrich said:
Thanks all for your feedback. I think that you may be correct in saying that a new CI policy would cost more, so perhaps I am being unfair to Canada Life.
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It will probably cost more than your original policy. It may or may not cost more than CL's revised premium. You may need a medical for new cover elsewhere. Shop around if you feel that you need continuing CI cover.
 
When I went looking for critical illness I noticed that most of the illnesses allowable would probably kill you within 3 or 4 years and straight life at €15 per €100,000 was a better bet.
 
As with any insurance cover you need to read the terms & conditions very carefully as well as checking the premium. For example many CI policies have a very specific list of illnesses that are covered and all others (even slight variants on some of those listed) will not be covered.
 
davidoco said:
When I went looking for critical illness I noticed that most of the illnesses allowable would probably kill you within 3 or 4 years and straight life at €15 per €100,000 was a better bet.
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The insured person will never draw the lifecover ,it will go to next of kin.But the insured person will draw the critical illness in a tax free lump sum and may recover to live a reasonably normal life.I personally know five different people who claimed CI lump sum and more than survived to fight another day i.e. back to work and some with mortgages cleared off and a nest egg to boot.
 
Have also know somebody who benefited from the ci cover in the same way. With the advances in medical science and perhaps with checkups and earlier detection/ screenings more people are probably surviving what would have been fatal illnesses only a few years ago.
 
By the sound of what you said, your policy is a Whole of Life policy which is subject to premium review which should have been explained to you when you took the policy out. The policy would generally be guaranteed for 10 year insofaras the premiums would not increase in the first 10 years then they are review, in line with their claims history, not your risk status. Then every five years thereafter and one year after I think age 70. However Canada Life are the only company as I know who offer up to a 20 year guarantee period if selected at outset where the original premiums are guaranteed.
 
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