The issues you should mull over when taking out critical illness cover and the rangeof companies offering thistype of policy.

Your mortgage provider may offer you quite a few financial products including critical illness cover. But, as they are not experts in this market, you will possibly find a better offer elsewhere.

The level of life insurance cover on offer is just as vital as the premium when seekingcritical illness cover. The policies from Alliance and Leicester and Nationwide are very restricted according to  a senior adviser at LifeSearch, a telephone and online life assurance broker. Liverpool and Victoria covers only eight critical illnesses, with Friend Provident covering just 9, whereas the market leader, Swiss Life, covers 39.

Loss of speech, deafness, blindness, diabetes, Aids and Parkinsons are some of the illnesses not covered by some of the big insurers.  The Directorsays that it is not worth thinking abouta policy, which insures less than 24 illnesses.

An umbrella term incorporated in  all policies is ‘total and permanent disabilities’, this term means you are covered for any condition, which prevents you working ever again.

You must be watchful of the lanuage as some policies cover ‘any occupation’ while others only insure your ‘own’ occupation. You will not receive a settlement under a ‘any occupation’ policy unless you are totallyunable to carryout a job, however unskilled. Consequently The senior adviserrecommends you sign up for a ‘own’ occupation policy.

There are a large number of companies as well as Swiss Life who offer comprehensive life insurance including Legal and General, Norwich Union, Standard Life, Scottish Equitable, Scottish Provident, Friends Provident, Liverpool Victoria, Skandia and Zurich Life