5 Reasons Why Your Term Plan Needs a Critical Illness Benefits

The only thing predictable about life is its unpredictability. You might have to confront a critical illness at any stage of your life. During times of distress, it becomes difficult to afford illness related expenses along with accommodating other financial needs. It’s even more difficult when the breadwinner of the family goes through treatment for critical illness. That is why it is important to get a critical illness rider along with your term insurance plan.

Sometimes critical illness insurance is also known as catastrophic illness insurance. It provides additional benefits to address medical emergencies like cancer, bone marrow transfusion, etc. because these kinds of medical emergencies generally cost higher than regular medical expenses. Critical illness insurance is available for a comparatively lower cost and can serve as a helping hand in times of financial difficulties.

Term Insurance 

Term insurance is a type of insurance that can be purchased by paying affordable premiums for a pre-determined tenure. It has no maturity period; thus, the family is entitled to get benefits only in the event of death. 

These plans are affordable, hence an ideal choice for people looking out for decent plans on a lower budget 

Critical illness Add-ons 

Critical illness insurance provides coverage against certain fatal diseases. Such illnesses may need daily hospital visits for a prolonged period. Thus, these illnesses cost a lot more and can land the person in a debt trap. 

Critical illness insurance ensures the required cash flow during the whole recovery period from the disease. A term insurance plan that comes with a critical illness benefit would provide the pre-decided lump sum amount to the insured, which would help him/her to cover the ongoing medical expenses.

5 Reasons Your Term Plan Needs Critical Illness Benefit

1.) Critical Illness Benefit acts as an Income replacement:

Critical illness benefits can have a major impact on the finance of the family. Critical illness insurance add-on provides a lump sum amount that would act as coverage for both medical and household expenses. Money availed from a Term plan for critical illness can be utilised as coverage for the illness-related expenditure as well as for day-to-day expenditure.

2.) A Term plan for critical illness covers the cash flow for most medical diseases:

The policyholder is insured against life-threatening diseases such as cancer, heart attack, organ failure, etc. All these are covered under the critical illness insurance policy. Treatment of this kind of disease can loosen your pockets, and sometimes people also get caught in a debt trap because of the expenses. Critical illness insurance would provide a lump sum amount that would cover all your medical expenses as covered by the insurance company.

3.) Lower Premiums

Critical illness cover is cost-effective as it covers only a few specific diseases, not all the diseases. These diseases are pre-specified in the policy cover. For example, an all-inclusive policy plan could give a cover of 100,000 AED for 500 AED. But you can get the same cover for 125 AED premium annually if you opt for a critical insurance policy.

4.) Easy claim process

Unlike a regular insurance policy, one is not required to submit proofs such as doctor’s prescription, bill of the hospital, etc. For claiming the amount of critical health insurance policy, only the diagnosis of the disease is enough. Insurance companies generally clear the claim after seeing a report of the disease. Thus, claiming the amount for a critical health insurance policy becomes a hassle-free task. 

5.) Longer tenure and superior amount assured 

Critical illness policy cover is generally for a longer period in comparison to regular health insurance policies. Some of the insurance providers also offer lifetime renewal facility in these types of policy covers. Also, the amount assured as a cover is greater than the amount one would get in regular health insurance policies. Thus, it is affordable to buy a critical insurance cover either as a complete insurance plan or along with the regular health or life insurance policy or even as a separate plan.

Eligibility & an overview of critical health cover in UAE:

• One can be a policyholder for a critical health insurance policy only if he/she is 18 years or older.
• Critical health insurance plan comes with one of the lowest premium rates in the market.
• Generally, critical health insurance comes with lifelong validity.
• You can choose the plan as per your needs, lifestyle and with an estimate of future forthcomings. 
• Critical health insurance is not an investment for the future and would not give any returns.
• The critical health insurance plan is portable around the world.
• The policyholder can pay the premium from anywhere in the world.
• Other diseases and photodynamic therapies (PTD) can also be added to your critical illness plan by extra payment of premiums.
• A critical health insurance plan comes with a worldwide cover.

 Points to keep in mind:-

• Unless the maximum tenure of the insurance policy is over, the coverage will continue to exist even after claiming the benefit on selected critical illness.
• Under the Term plan for critical illness, the policyholder can get a full benefit amount during the recovery period only. 
• The benefit amount payable is equal to the critical illness cover that the policyholder has chosen.
• One of the benefits of critical illness is that it does not have a minimum survival period and based on the first diagnosis, the benefit is paid immediately.
• Within few weeks of receipt of all the necessary documents, the policyholder can settle the claim.
• Read the list of all critical illness insurance benefits included in your policy carefully. Different companies offer different risk coverage for different critical illnesses. Study them carefully before opting for them.

Some leading insurance companies that provide critical illness cover:-

• Sehteq
• Orient Insurance
• Alliance
• DNIRC
• Union Insurance
• Takaful Emarat
• Noor Takaful
• Watania
• Al Sagr
• Adamjee

The bottom line

In today’s fast paced world, life has become unpredictable. It is important to keep your insurance plans well designed in order for them to yield benefits when you need them the most. Critical illness add-on can be opted for separately at any point in time and can also be clubbed with the ongoing term plan by paying some extra amount of premium. However, proper research has to be done before getting the critical insurance cover as there are a large number of insurance providers giving different features and benefits.

Policybazaar.ae offers the lowest premium rates in the market and can help you in comparing all the plans so that you can take a better, well-informed, and cost-effective decision

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