What is Children’s Critical Illness Cover?
Children’s critical illness cover is a type of insurance policy designed to pay out a lump sum if your child is diagnosed with a serious condition.
It can be bought as a standalone policy, or you may be able to add children’s cover to an existing adult critical illness cover policy.
What illnesses are covered?The specific illnesses covered by different insurers vary, but usually include childhood cancer, heart conditions, and rare diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
When could it come in handy?
That’s all fine, but what if you could also get some money for the trips to hospital? What if you could stop worrying about how as soon as you walked in the door your baby would be in intensive care for a few weeks, needing round-the-clock care?
Now imagine a world where something like that doesn’t even need to happen. In fact, it needn’t happen at all. In this world, your child can go to school or work just like any other. They can live full and healthy lives without being closely monitored and tended to every moment of their lives.
In this world, there’s no coverage needed, because families don’t have to spend thousands on private health insurance policies anymore either. When you’re young and healthy, it might seem like we can do everything with public services—but when something goes wrong or needs extra attention, there are complex systems that need working through first. That needs time and money in the system; not to mention time off work so people can take their child or relative into hospital or pay for specialist support in that crucial first week after a crisis has arrived (because even if they’ve got insurance for specialist care, there might not be enough room in the waiting list).
So let’s say your 3 year old has a cough that turns out not to be asthma at all but some kind of chest infection instead (or an ear infection), which causes them lots of pain and fever; maybe a visit from the doctor is able to sort it out quickly enough so they don’t have to go into hospital (and by default won’t get sicker) but by then their symptoms are too severe for them ever going back home again anyway; maybe their parents aren’t matched up properly with suitable carers who understand their children well enough yet – so they end up spending most of every night in hospital with their little one having lots of medicines pumped into them or even admitted straight into another ward under close observation (without any father/m
Is critical illness cover worth taking out?
- Taking out CIC can be expensive. As a parent, you’ll want to make sure that you’re supporting your children financially. You might think that taking out critical illness cover is the best way to protect them, but it’s worth weighing up this option against other options like extra savings or insurance policies.
- Your children may already be covered by other policies. Some companies offer free CIC as part of their life insurance policies. Check with your provider to see if they will include coverage for your children within their policy.
Myths about children’s critical illness cover
Every so often you may hear someone say that childrens critical illness cover is ‘not worth it’.
You may have heard lots of reasons why people say this but let’s look at them in a bit more detail.
There has been research done and the ONS reports that the chance of a child dying before they are 18 years old is very low.
We all hope our children will never become seriously ill but if they do it can have severe financial implications, even with the NHS healthcare system we all know about in the UK..
You may wish to take out critical illness cover for your children as well as for yourself or your partner.
You may wish to take out critical illness cover for your children as well as for yourself or your partner. As with the adults in your family, the policy would pay a cash sum on diagnosis of a critical illness, which could be used to pay for items such as private medical treatment not available on the NHS, to help adapt your home or car if necessary and simply to help tide you over financially.
While we all want what is best for our children, sadly their health is not always guaranteed. One in four of us will develop cancer during our lifetime so it’s important that we consider whether they should be covered too.