What to do with critical illness cover?

Just_me

Hi, I'm looking for very basic advice/guidance on my current situation regarding my critical illness cover, when it comes to insurance and such things I confess, I'm pretty awful. I did some searching but couldn't seem to get a result that matched my situation.

I have a critical illness cover policy that I took it with my mortgage as necessitated by the bank, it was a 25 year "mortgage decreasing term assurance with critical illness cover", according to the document and costs me £9.23 a month.

Through lots of overtime and careful saving, I was in fact lucky enough able to pay the mortgage off after 6 years, but am now unsure what to do with the cover, in the sense of whether I should cancel or change it in some way.

From what I can tell it doesn't seem like it's 'tied' to the mortgage other than the payout decreasing overtime, so I assume that means if I were unlucky enough to become ill in some way, I could still potentially claim and use the money in some other way, towards medical bills or somesuch? Or I gather there are 'fixed' versions of that type of cover which don't decrease over time, which would perhaps be more applicable now? Although I gather that sort of cover is more expensive, but am unsure how much more expensive we'd be talking.

I'm currently single and have no children or anything, so I assume standard life insurance isn't really something I'm after right now as I wouldn't be leaving anyone behind so to speak and my parents/sisters would get the house anyway.

Would just appreciate some very basic advice on whether this is something that's worth maybe keeping going or what the better alternative and subsequent cost change might be.

Thanks in advance for any help. 

touch*my*food*feel*myfork

personally at under £10 a month I would continue to pay

We fortunately had critical illness cover taken out 20 years ago and it paid out for us when my husband was ill with a cancer that is now not covered on new policies  (Ours was a decreasing term but still paid out more than the mortgage amount)  - thankfully he is now fully recovered but it enabled him to slow down and change his career and for us to have a better life/work balance

coachman12

I agree with touchmyfood that , at under £10, it sounds well worth keeping. Check that it is still in force, as it was linked to another purpose when taken out, by phoning the company concerned and quoting your policy number. It may be very useful in the future, just as in the case mentioned in the previous post. You say you don't need life insurance right now, but if you already have any life insurance policies, please check that none of them also cover critical illness, as many do so. Finally, critical illness cover is generally a very good thing to have, so if you find your present cover is no longer valid or if it does not pay out as much as you may need or it has a minimum age you don't like, check out some of the online comparison sites such as 
 https://www.comparethemarket.com/life-insurance/critical-illness/
or google critical illness cover under any large company such as Aviva. 
Even though much critical illness cover these days is tied to life policies, as an addition, it is still available as a separate form of cover as you appear to want. Good luck.

Sandtree

It may be worth while speaking to a protection insurance broker to assess your total needs against what you currently have and they can advise on what to do.

I'm not personally that big a fan of critical illness cover, as I am sure you are aware it only pays out for specified conditions at a specified level of severity... you can be critically ill, off work etc and it not payout as your condition isnt on the list. I'd personally make sure income is protected properly against any accident/sickness and then consider CI possibly on top of that if you're so inclined.

Weighty1

It is almost certainly NOT tied to the property and even if it was it would only have been a requirement whilst there was a mortgage which needed servicing.  Whilst £10/month is a small premium you need to weigh up what will be paid out if you claim and what other alternatives are out there.  For example, I'd normally recommend income protection first and foremost as this covers almost anything which stops you working and is therefore much more likely to be claimed upon.