Critical Illness stand alone providers

Constantly_Confused_2

I'm trying to find providers of stand alone critical illness cover. When I do a google search loads come up but on investigation they are actually life insurance policies with CI added on. I don't want life insurance cover. Any help/advice?

kingstreet

If you take stand-alone critical illness cover and die within 28 days of contracting the condition for which you would claim, there will be no payout.

By going for death or earlier critical illness cover there is a payout if you survive, or if you die.

The premium is pennies higher to have life & critical illness cover, so your stand alone plan may be lousy value for money overall.

dunstonh

The same providers that offer Life with CIC also do standalone CIC. The cost difference between CIC only and Life and CIC is usually very minimal.

Chris_Pollard

Few providers offer standalone CIC for the reasons outlined above. The claims experience on standalone policies was often marginally worse than on CIC with Life cover policies - which is both counter intuitive but perhaps provided some evidence of what's called "anti-selection" in the industry. There was a possibility of standalone CIC being more expensive than CIC with life. This would require so much time and effort explaining that most providers exited the standalone market entirely. There may be some unusual situations in which the life cover attracts a loading - usually for occupations or high risk pursuits. If the life cover is genuinely not required, the better insurers would remove, via an endorsement, the life cover element to avoid the premium loading - and then apply exclusions to certain CI conditions.

Given the low number of standalone providers, and the small additional cost, it is probably worth taking the life cover to make sure you can pick the best CI coverage around in the market.

ACG

I have seen it cost more for standalone than for joint.
Is there any reason why you are trying to avoid life cover? If it is cost then you may find it is worth doing the 2.

ThinkingOutLoud_2

Insurers are likely to offer products they feel they know how to underwrite - the underwriting differences between critical illness and life are smaller than say between motor and home...

As asked - what do you think a stand- alone insurer will achieve for you and why?