How would your family or loved ones cope if they suffered a stroke or were diagnosed with cancer?

Not only might they lose their income through not being able to work, but they might also have to tap into their savings, sell their home or face major costs for medical treatment and rehabilitation. Not a pretty picture.

Critical Illness insurance can help remove many of your financial worries and concentrate on getting better if you became critically ill.

Critical Illness Insurance can cover a wide variety of illnesses that can occur in an adult’s life such as Stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Cancer, Loss of independence and speech, blindness and deafness, Multiple Sclerosis and many other things. Illnesses covered will vary from insurance providers so it is important to read the Product Disclosure Statement.

Critical Illness insurance will pay you a lump sum payment if you were to meet any of the illness definitions covered in your insurance. As illnesses are unplanned its important to have the insurance in place to cover you for this. Below are two various scenarios of various illnesses that have occurred and the financial impact on the families:

 

Source : MLC Limited

Children’s critical illness insurance

Childrens Critical Illness insurance is able to provide you with lump sum insurance payment that can cover help to go towards expenses such as travel to and from hospital, care for any other children, tutors and also to cover the loss of income so you can take time off to work for your child as well as medical expenses.

It can cover a wide range of illnesses such as cancer, bacterial meningitis, blindness, coma, deafness, chronic kidney and liver failure, major burns and other major illnesses that may occur in a child’s life.

For some insurance companies, Children’s critical illness insurance is covered with your own critical illness insurance. It is important to ask if this is a feature that your insurance may have.

The Statistics

Around half of all Australians aged over 30 will suffer at least one of the seven health conditions that can lead to long-term disability and, consequently, a long-term loss of income.

Source: NATSEM, Health and Income in Australia, 2003.

About 2 million Australian women have cardiovascular disease – about 226,000 women have coronary heart disease, 168,000 have had a stroke and 176,000 have heart failure

Source – Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Women and Heart disease 2010

According to the Children’s cancer institute of Australia, every year more than 600 children are diagnosed with cancer.

By age 85, one in every two males will have been diagnosed with cancer at some stage of their life

Source – Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Cancer in Australia, an overview, 2010

By Steven Nickelson , Certified Financial Planner.

Income Solutions Financial Planners

Please note : The article on this site  is of general nature only and has not been tailored to your personal circumstances. Please seek personal advice prior to acting on this information.