Critical Illness - Skandia or Bupa??

chelsea77

A couple of observations...

1) You cannot compare Critical Illness (CI)contracts with serious illness (SI)contracts. Ask yourself ... What do most people claim for on these type of contracts? .... Correct ..... Cancer ...Heart Attack and Stroke. Now take a look at what you would be paid on a SI contract for these 3 illnesses. I reckon that the Pru contract is a claims time bomb ticking in that most people who are sold this contract are sold to by advisers that do not fully understand it. ( wow what a sweeping statement!) The average client will have an expectation that if they get Cancer then they would get 100% .. especially if they have bought a CI contract in the past.

2) BUPA? They market themselves as having the most comprehensive cover yet they have the highest % of not paying claims due to not meeting policy conditions .. can't have it both ways!

Cautious_Investor_3

Hi

I have a matrix showing the illnesses covered by all the major critical illness providers, it makes it very easy to see who covers what.

If anyone would like a copy send me a private message with your email address and I'd be very happy to forward it to you.

The Cautious Investor

Cautious_Investor_3

chelsea77 wrote: »

A couple of observations...

2) BUPA? They market themselves as having the most comprehensive cover yet they have the highest % of not paying claims due to not meeting policy conditions .. can't have it both ways!

How do you know that BUPA have the highest percentage of declined claims?

dunstonh

sophievenusdoom

mikeyboy wrote: »

The Pru-Protect comprehensive cover looks very good. I am now torn between Bupa and Prup-Protect.

Does anyone have any opinions on which is best? best definitions?

Also, regarding term of cover. I am wanting to lock-in gheaper uaranteed rates whilst young(ish) , so I do not want to tie the cover to a mortgage. Would it be a reasonable idea to put cover in place to say age 60 by which time it is highly likely financially any impact a critical illness would have should be minimal.

Thoughts welcome as always!

You will find that although insurance companies may say the premiums are reviewable, they will be guranteed for at least the first 5 or 10 years of the policy (then reviewed each year based on claims history of people of your age in your profession etc). You can always then, after this time, change the premiums to guaranteed which means you have saved money opting for the reviewable premiums initially, but have the security of having guaranteed premiums in the future

Cautious_Investor_3

sophievenusdoom wrote: »

You will find that although insurance companies may say the premiums are reviewable, they will be guranteed for at least the first 5 or 10 years of the policy (then reviewed each year based on claims history of people of your age in your profession etc). You can always then, after this time, change the premiums to guaranteed which means you have saved money opting for the reviewable premiums initially, but have the security of having guaranteed premiums in the future

Hi

A couple of observations here:

1. It may not be in your best interests to change a policy in the future if critical illness definitions have worsened. For example I have an old Aviva policy, taken out in 1998, which has the old definition of prostate cancer, a new contract would have a different definition requiring higher PSA levels etc.

2. It may not be possible to change contract in years to come due to medical issues that have arisen and therefore would cause exclusions on a new contract.

You cannot guarantee that you will definitely be able to change contract in the future, if you can go for guaranteed premiums now, but not at the expense of the quality of cover i.e. if more illnesses are covered then go for reviewable rates.

The Cautious Investor

chelsea77

Cautious_Investor wrote: »

How do you know that BUPA have the highest percentage of declined claims?

Each year each company declares its stats of claims paid/not paid. The claims not paid are broken down into those for non disclosure and those for not meeting policy conditions .... BUPA has the industry highest for not meeting policy conditions.