Why You Need to Know About the Critical Illness Plan

The increase in the lifespan of human beings comes with an increase of critical illness possibilities. Human beings are working to deal with diseases; nature has its own response to our modem way of living.

Incidences of critical illness like cancer, heart diseases, brain tumour or paralysis have become common.

“If you look at healthcare today, it’s all about disease. It’s not about understanding wellness at all.” Leroy Hood

Your medical cost starts much before you are diagnosed with a disease. While your health insurance plan gives you money only on Hospitalisation, Critical Illness plans give you the money immediately on the diagnosis of a disease.

Here is a plan by Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance designed to deal with the critical illness requirement of the insured and his family.

The diseases covered:

The Criti-Care plan covers 17 critical illnesses. These are divided into 4 categories.

Category one consists of;

• Open chest CABG
• First heart attack of a specific severity
• Open heart or Heart valve surgery
• Kidney Failure
• Major organ transplant like heart, kidney
• Stroke
• Aorta Surgery

Category 2 consists of;

• Aplastic Anaemia
• Cancer of specified severity
• Benign brain tumour
• Major organ transplants like bone marrow, liver, pancreas or lung

Category 3 consists of;

• Permanent paralysis of limbs
• Coma of specified severity
• Major burns
• Total blindness

Category 4 consists of;

• Motor neurone disease with permanent symptoms
• Multiple sclerosis with persisting symptoms

The idea of these 4 categories is to offer multi-claim benefit to the insured.

What are the benefits?

There are two options to select from under this plan.

• Single Benefit
• Multiple Benefits

Single Benefit:

Under this option, the benefit is payable to the extent of the policy amount immediately after the 28th day of the survivor of the insured.

If the disease is diagnosed on the 1st of the month, policy benefit i.e. lump-sum policy amount is payable on the 29th of the month and the policy gets terminated.

The insured must survive for 28 days from the first diagnoses of the illness.

You can use the money for whatever purpose you like. No questions asked or no bills to be submitted.

The critical illness comes with many after effects. This money comes with a great relief for the insured and the family members.

Multiple Benefits:

This is a unique feature.

Here under this option, the insured gets multiple claim benefits.

The first claim is payable as per the single option benefit i.e. after 28 days of survival from the first diagnosis of the diseases.

Thereafter the entire future premium is waived off but the policy continues.

The other two benefits are payable when the insured is diagnosed with the critical illness from the other two categories.

If the insured is diagnosed for any illness from the other categories than the 1st category for which the earlier benefit is paid, the claim money is payable after the 28 days of survival of the insured from the day the disease was diagnosed.

Example:

Disease from the 1st category diagnosed on the 1st January, the insured survives for 28 days, the claim money is payable on 29th January.

The future premium is waived off and the policy continues

2nd disease from the category 2 is diagnosed on 1st March, the insured survives for 28 days, the claim money is payable on 29th March.

The policy continues.

3rd disease from the category 4 is diagnosed on 1st May, the insured survives for 28 days, the claim money is payable on 29th May.

The policy terminates.

Exclusions you need to know:

There are certain exclusions that you need to know before you sign up for the policy. This means insurance money is not payable in certain conditions. These are;

• Any critical illness or its signs or symptoms having occurred within 90 days of policy issue date.
• For a policy which was lapsed and has subsequently been revived, any critical illness or its signs or symptoms having occurred within 90 days of revival date.
• For all pre-existing diseases or health conditions at proposal stage or reinstatement, the benefits would be available after 48 months from the date of commencement or reinstatement.

These are the major exclusions. There are some more.

To know more about the 17 critical illnesses and exclusions click here to download the brochure.

“Even if you have a terminal disease, you don’t have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness that you have.” Nelson Mandela

By investing in Critical Illness plan you may not be able to prevent the illness but you can certainly make it manageable. The money you get will make you and your family fight the disease with vigour. Your decisions will be objective and not shadowed by lack of money.

You may like to read: A Customer Focussed Life Insurance Plan – Zindagi Plus