Legal & General (L&G) told delegates at the Cover Forum how they can enable clients to purchase crit...
Legal & General (L&G) told delegates at the Cover Forum how they can enable clients to purchase critical illness (CI) with a zero-day survival period by selling life assurance with an accelerated CI benefit, instead of a standalone CI policy.
The insurer said that while standalone CI can represent value for money, the families of policyholders can be left disappointed if the insured dies within the survival period.
But according to the British Heart Foundation, of the 270,000 people that suffer a heart attack each year, 81,000 die before reaching hospital leaving those with standalone CI unable to claim, despite having suffered a critical illness.
But while standalone CI with a zero-day survival period might sound expensive, life cover with a CI rider is usually only a matter of pence more per month than the standalone CI, especially on younger lives.
Simon Maskell, head of protection marketing at L&G, said: 'How do you explain to a widow that her partner died too soon and the policy they paid for every month will not pay out? For a small extra cost clients get a terminal illness benefit and life cover as well, so if they suffer a serious illness and die within the survival period the policy will still pay out. IFAs are ideally placed to explain this.'
