It’s best to buy Life and Health Insurance at an early age. Delaying your purchase could lead to complications. We may not always think that something unfortunate may happen to us, but with age, our health risks and chances of getting a critical illness increase. This could be due to hereditary reasons, bad lifestyle or just plain bad luck.
Having Health and Critical Illness Insurance can be of great help during any acute illness. But without them, it can be financially draining for the ailing person and their family.
What happens when you suffer from a critical illness and don’t have insurance? Are you still allowed to go and get yourself life and health cover?
Let’s explore ways to get the little help that you can under such circumstances.
Additional Reading: Introduction To Critical Illness Plans
Insurer’s Risks
If a person who has had a critical illness seeks an insurance cover, it completely depends on the insurance company on whether or not to sell insurance to the person under the circumstances.
The decision is based on the evaluation of risk carried out by the insurer. Obviously, risky cases such as terminally ill persons, or persons who’ve had multiple instances of the same critical illness, will be rejected outright. Less obvious cases may have to be processed through medical testing for a thorough assessment of health risks.
If the test results reveal an applicant to be at low risk, their insurance application may be accepted. However, these decisions are highly subjective, and each insurer will have their own way of approaching the issue.
The term ‘critical illness’ is described differently by each insurer. While one insurer may have 20 such illnesses, another may have just 10. Some critical illnesses are treated more seriously than others. Highly developed lung cancer, for example, can be more difficult to recover from than early stage skin cancer.
Insurers assess just how much the critical illness will impact your long-term health. For example, if you’ve had heart surgery but have recovered from it, have a healthy diet, exercise a lot, and need minimal maintenance in terms of medicines and health care, you have a far better chance of getting your insurance cover than someone who is still suffering from severe symptoms of his illness.
Additional Reading: How To Buy A Comprehensive Health Plan
Your Options
If you’re seeking Life Insurance after a critical illness, there’s a small chance you may be allowed a low sum assured along with a small policy term. For example, you may not be able to get a term plan for 40 years, but some insurers may allow you a 10-year plan based on their assessment of your health risks.
Secondly, you could become part of group Health Insurance schemes. This could be through your employer or even the employer of your spouse or children. These group covers do not seek medical testing of its members. Your working spouse or working children may list you as dependents while availing these covers from their employers.
Be aware that these policies end the moment you (or the person you’re dependent on) part ways with the employer. However, you still have the option to continue the same coverage by transferring it out of the group policy and converting it into a personal retail policy by obtaining the employer’s NOC and paying the premium.
Thirdly, whatever your options, you could always have a personal accident policy even after you have come out of critical illness. These covers do not require medical testing. They can be availed for accidental death, permanent or partial disability, and temporary disability as per your requirements and premium-paying capacity.
Lastly, you can also take a critical illness cover for any illness that will not be caused by your pre-existing diseases. This is subject to the insurer’s rules and regulations.
Our Advice…
As these above-listed options suggest, having a critical illness isn’t the end of the road insurance-wise. But if you’re a healthy person reading this, it’s always wise to buy insurance – Life, Health, and Critical Illness – while you’re young and healthy. This will save you and your family tons of trouble in the long run.