Conditions Covered
The schedule of insured illnesses varies between insurance companies. In 1983, four conditions were covered by the policy, i.e. heart attack, cancer, stroke and coronary artery by-pass surgery.
Examples of other conditions that might be covered include:
- Alzheimer's disease
- blindness
- deafness
- kidney failure
- A major organ transplant
- multiple sclerosis
- HIV/AIDS contracted by blood transfusion or during an operation
- Parkinson's disease
- paralysis of limb
- terminal illness
Due to the fact that the incidence of a condition may decrease over time and both the diagnosis and treatment may improve over time, the financial need to cover some illnesses deemed critical a decade ago are no longer deemed necessary today. Likewise, some of the conditions covered today may no longer be needed a decade or so in the future.
The actual conditions covered depend on the market need for the cover, competition amongst insurers, as well as the policyholder's perceived value of the benefits offered. For these reasons conditions such as diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, among others, may become the norm cover provided in the future.
In the UK the design of these plans has extended to cover over 40 conditions and to frequently include partial payments for some higher risk conditions such as coronary angioplasty, early stage prostate cancer and ductal carcinoma in situ. For this reason the CIExpert website is used by both consumers and financial advisers for in-depth research purposes.
Read more about this topic: Critical Illness Insurance
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