If you have an existing life insurance policy it may be possible to add the critical illness cover to this existing plan, however it may be more expensive because it is already up and running. You should shop around and see if you can find a competitive price. With insurance companies you must be aware that the terms and conditions especially on products like critical illness and life insurance are very strict on underwriting their policies. The reasons behind this are so that they can come to a fair and correct decision for both the insured and the insurer. In some cases if a decision is made that you are not entirely happy with you can dispute it with the company and they can assess the decision again and possibly change it, but in most cases the decisions they make are almost pretty much final. When people take out insurances for things like life and critical illness cover they can often think and feel that they have taken this insurance out for a period of time for example 35 years and that's it done until then or until the die. This is a very uneconomical way to look at it.
Fair enough the insurance may be in force but say 10 years down the line is your insurance policy giving you the best cover available for the best price. The answer to this is more than likely no. There is no harm in shopping around and seeing what's out there as long as you make sure you always have a form of cover in place and that the new policy covers everything you had before and most certainly more. This is a good way to review the commitments that you already have and if anything to better your options and potential pay outs. Insurances are forever changing their terms and conditions along with the cover that they have to offer. Typically the amounts of critical illnesses that are covered as standard with some insurance companies now are between 30 and 42. This may not be the case with your existing policy.
When thinking about taking out a form of critical illness insurance for either yourself or a loved one you should be aware that age plays a big part in this type of insurance. Basically the older you are at the time of application, typically the more the insurance premium will be and there is more of a chance that you could be more at risk of developing an ailment. Anything regarding insuring the life of a person or another has very strict rules, regulations and requirements. Insurance company can often rate an individual premium wise if they feel that the person is acceptable for having insurance but are over their guideline. An example of this would be a guidance of height and weight ratio that the company has. If the applicant is over the stipulated guidelines then the company are perfectly within their rights to increase the premium because of this. A few more reasons why this could happen could be due to the applicant's occupation, sport and leisure habits, lifestyle habits such as smoking and drinking, travelling regimes and many more. The insurers can really charge what they want but of course it has to be within reason and they call this a rating of the policy. Taking out a life insurance policy or a critical illness cover can give the insured a great peace of mind knowing should something happen to them that the money they have insured for will be paid to help financially with things. As with any form of insurance on a life the policies often have a survival period on them. These are as they sound a period of time that the policy holder(s) must survive for them to be eligible to make a claim. Often people decide to go with an insurer whose name they are aware of. For example the bigger companies can afford to spread their wings and advertise almost everywhere so that their name is known and where as there is other smaller companies that just can't afford to do this so they rely on reputation to prevail their business for them.
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