Critical Illness with Life Assurance..worth it ?

gvmh71

Can someone offer any advice.

I've bought a house and am single with no dependents and my financial advisor is advising I take out the BUPA Critical Illness with Life Insurance. I know if I just get life insurance it would just pay off the mortgage if I died. Which is fine as my house would then go to my sister. Life Insurance on its own is relatively cheap.

I'm completely baffled about what to go for as the BUPA policy would cost £35 a month and a life insurance on its own around £6. Can any single home owners tell me what they opted for ?

I know its all a big gamble and a risk but I can't decide !

And what about the Income protection policy ? If I was out of work due to illness I'd get paid 6 months at full pay then half pay for 6 months then onto SSP so would that be worth it ?

My head is battered with all this insurance talk ! Help !

Haigh162

Think its a personal thing, but I took it out when I bought my house and when my partner moved in I got them added. When they were diagnosed with a critical illness it did pay out but after some wrangling - make sure you fill out every medical question and leave nothing out and keep a copy of the paperwork. You take the gamble as you don't know if you are going to get an illness that may prevent you from working. I am looking at income protection also and if the policy isn't horrendous I am going to go with that for piece of mind and knowing I won't struggle with bills, etc, should anything prevent me from working in the future. With benefits being slashed, if you were ill for over a year, or if you couldn't work again or perhaps only part time or something lower paid, could you afford to keep your house.
Not sure if thats any help or confused you more, for us it was worth paying the premiums but I'm sure others have taken it and not claimed from the critical illness side of things!

gvmh71

Thanks. I am probably going to take it out but you know when you can't make that decision and just need some opinions ! Thanks for your input it is food for thought !

eyeinthesky

My son had this cover some years ago. Unfortunately, he got skin cancer and died at the age of 25, but the insurance paid out before he died. It was a great comfort to him to know that his wife would not have the worry of a mortgage during the last months of his life. You are single now, but that could change. If you can afford it, it might be a good thing to have.

bluenoseam

Yeah i'm gonna chime in with another "you never know" vote here - diagnosed at 25 with tonsil cancer rather stupidly i didn't have any insurance since i figured i didn't have any responsibility and well, who at 25 thinks they're getting hit with THAT bombshell! It's gonna be atleast another couple of years before any insurance company will look at me and i've already resigned myself to the fact i'll likely never own property - but hey, i've kicked cancer's backside, that's better than any title deed!

on the plus side, when i get cold-calls from insurance companies it sure gives me a laugh - if only i could see their faces!

dunstonh

My youngest claimant on CI was 25. I had one early last year aged 30 with a heart attack. Once upon a time we seemed to deal with more death claims. For some years we seem to deal with more CI claims than any other type of claim.

Can't see any reason to take out a life assurance here though. A standalone CI policy and a PHI policy would make sense. A life assurance policy could easily be classed as mis-sale as there is no financial need.