Factors to Consider While Planning for Buying a Critical Illness Policy

What is Critical Illness?

Any illness that can cause serious permanent damage to your health, rendering you unhealthy to work or any illness that can potentially turn into a terminal disease is referred to as critical illness

Why do I need to plan for critical illness?

Being the only or the significant bread earner in the family, you cannot afford to fall sick. Your illness means that your family might have to suffer financially. When you are diagnosed with a critical illness, you have two major concerns that need to be addressed. Firstly, you will be concerned about the bill of your treatment. While your health insurance may cover your hospital bills, your loss of salary is seldom covered under health insurance plans. Under such circumstances, a critical illness can prove fatal for your finances. Secondly, critical illness can turn into a terminal illness or it can force you to retire early. In either of the situations, your family’s financial condition might be hampered. In both scenarios, your term life insurance in the UAE will come to your rescue. In case of your demise, the term life insurance in the UAE will provide monetary benefits to your family. On the other hand, if you are permanently disabled, the term life insurance will provide the sum insured to your nominee, ensuring that critical illness does not lead to a financial struggle for your family members.

Questions You Need to Think About While Planning for Critical illness

Is Critical illness Covered Under Life Insurance?

Some types of life insurance plans in the UAE such as term life insurance cover critical illness, guaranteeing to pay a lump sum amount in case the policyholder is diagnosed with a critical illness. While purchasing life insurance, you should consider if the critical illness benefits are included in your life insurance plan.

What Type of Life Insurance is Beneficial for Critical Illness?

The two best life insurance plans in the UAE that offer critical illness benefits are whole life insurance and term life insurance. With whole life insurance, you can choose an add-on for critical illness to secure monetary benefits in case if you are diagnosed with a critical illness. However, the premium of whole life insurance is higher. Adding critical illness cover further inflates the whole life insurance cost. Therefore, if you are looking for critical illness benefits with life insurance, you should consider term life insurance. A term life insurance plan costs less while offering a higher sum insured. You can add critical illness cover to term life insurance at a lower cost and live stress-free.

Is Life Insurance Sufficient to Cover Critical Illness?

When making financial plans, you often leave a chunk of your finances for various insurances, including health insurance, life insurance, and critical illness insurance. However, term life insurance allows you to receive the benefit of life cover and critical illness cover under one insurance policy. Therefore, term life insurance saves you money sparing it for other investments. With term life insurance add-ons, you can cover diseases like: 

• Major Cancers
• Heart Attack of Specified Severity
• Stroke
• Coronary Artery By-pass Surgery
• Kidney Failure
• Aplastic Anaemia
• End-Stage Lung Disease
• End-Stage Liver Failure
• Coma
• Deafness (Loss of Hearing)

Is It Worth Buying Critical Illness Insurance?

To answer this question, you need to ask yourself another question - “Am I prone to Critical Illness?” Before making any plans to purchase critical illness insurance, you need to consider if you are prone to critical illness. Some critical illnesses are transmitted genetically. If any of your family members ever had a history of critical illness such as diabetes, blood pressure, asthma or cancer, then you might be prone to critical illness at a later stage of life. Check your family history to determine the possibility of critical illness. In case you are prone to critical illness, critical illness insurance will be more beneficial for you than term life insurance since critical illness insurance will cover a wider range of critical illnesses such as:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• Aorta graft surgery
• Aplastic anaemia 
• Bacterial meningitis
• Benign brain tumour
• Blindness
• Cancer
• Cardiomyopathy
• Coma
• Coronary artery bypass
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
• Deafness
• Encephalitis
• Heart attack
• Heart valve replacement or repair
• HIV infection 
• Kidney failure
• Liver failure
• Loss of hands or feet
• Loss of independence
• Loss of speech
• Major organ transplant
• Major neuron disease
• Multiple sclerosis

Which is More Beneficial - Critical Illness Insurance or Life Insurance?

A life insurance plan will provide you life cover offering a sum insured to your family in case of your untimely demise. A critical illness insurance plan will pay you a lump sum within 90 days if you are diagnosed with a critical illness. However, both the insurance policies are delimiting in nature, which means there is no restriction on how you want to use the received money. You can use this money to receive treatment or to pay your debts. You can also use the money to pay for the education of your child or invest or use it in any other way you wish. The major difference between the two policies is that a term life insurance policy alone is adequate to offer you sufficient financial cover since it provides a hefty sum insured and allows you to add a critical illness cover as well. On the other hand, critical illness insurance alone is not beneficial since it will not cover your life. In case of your untimely demise due to an accident or any other reason, critical illness insurance is not liable to pay you any insured sum. 

Highlights Points on Life Insurance &  Critical Insurance

Eligibility Criteria for Critical Illness Insurance

The following are the eligibility requirements and the required documentation to apply for critical illness insurance:

• The age range is 18 to 65 years old
• Emirati residency permits in good standing

Documents Required for Critical Illness Insurance

• A valid passport
• Proof of Emirati citizenship
• Address verification
• Certificate of employment/salary proof
• Duly filled application form (online/offline)

Best Life Insurance Providers in the UAE

• Alliance Insurance Company
• AXA Insurance Company
• FPI Life Insurance
• LIC Life Insurance
• Life Insurance Corporation (LIC)
• MetLife Life Insurance
• National Life Insurance
• Noor Takaful Insurance Company
• Oman Insurance Company
• Salama Life Insurance
• Takaful Emarat Life Insurance
• Union Life Insurance
• Zurich Life Insurance

Conclusion

While planning for critical illness, the first thing you should do is assess your needs. Consider your family history to determine whether you are prone to a critical illness. Once you have answered that question, consider if the critical illness you are prone to be is covered under the life insurance plan. After addressing these questions, decide whether critical illness insurance is more suitable for you or term life insurance. Once you know your needs, visit the term life insurance section or critical illness insurance section on our website and choose the plan as per your needs.