Critical Illness Cover pays out a tax-free lump sum if you become critically ill with one of the serious illnesses the policy covers. You must meet the severity of the illness the insurer details in its terms and conditions to make a claim.
There are multiple insurers to choose from, each with their own coverage for various conditions and slightly different policy terms. It can therefore be tricky to find the best Critical Illness Insurance. You need to know exactly what you’re looking for and what’s best for your needs.
If at any point you want an idea of Critical Illness Insurance premiums, use our online comparison tool to get quotes from every top UK insurer →
The most common conditions Critical Illness Insurance providers pay out for are:
However, your policy will likely cover many critical conditions. These often include:
Most of the best Critical Illness Insurance providers cover around 40 conditions.
However, there are insurers which cover just 10 illnesses and those which cover more than 100. It therefore pays to do your research or get an expert adviser on the case.
If you need help please don’t hesitate to pop us a call on 02084327333 or email help@drewberry.co.uk.
To get started, it’s important to understand just what Critical Illness Insurance providers offer.
Finding the best Critical Illness Cover isn’t easy. There’s lots to think about when you compare providers, from the number of conditions each insurer covers to the definitions of those conditions.
You’ll also want to check out any additional benefits, and potentially compare each provider’s child cover if you have a family or plan to start one in the future.
To get the best cover, you’ll need to compare a few key factors relating to insurers and their policies. For example, you’ll want to look at:
Firstly, look at the insurer providing the cover. Take a look at its reviews, both from clients and from expert advisers.
How is the claims experience? Does it offer a high enough benefit and have the kind of features you’re after?
Firstly, Critical Illness Insurance is there to pay out if you develop one of the conditions the policy covers. It’s that simple.
However, it’s more complicated when you start looking at each insurer’s small print.
All the best Critical Illness Insurance providers offer cover for the ‘big three’ illnesses (cancer, heart attacks and strokes). They also cover a number of other major conditions in common. However, there are key differences in many areas.
Ultimately, some insurers cover more conditions than others.
One area where this is particularly clear is with total permanent disability (TPD) cover. This triggers a payout if you become totally and permanently disabled.
However, not every insurer includes it as one of the critical illnesses that trigger a payout. For many providers, you must add it for an extra premium.
As well as the number of conditions each provider covers, you want to dive into the detail and look at the definitions of those conditions.
Some insurers have better definitions than others. For example, some insurers pay out for any diagnosis of cancer. Most, however, require cancer to be at a set severity before you can claim.
To help with this, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) produced model definitions of conditions. This lays out the definitions of the illnesses the best Critical Illness Insurance providers commonly cover and therefore to what severity you must develop them before you can claim.
These are only minimum standards, however. Many insurers go above and beyond for some conditions, offering what’s known as an ABI+ definition. That’s a definition that is better than the definition the ABI dictates.
The best Critical Illness Insurance providers include the most ABI+ definitions.
Children’s Critical Illness Cover offers a payout if one of your children develops a critical condition. This is most commonly 25% of your benefit, but can be more with certain insurers. Other providers let you pick a child benefit of your choosing.
Some insurers include children’s Critical Illness Insurance as standard. It comes with the cover, regardless of whether you have children.
With other providers, it’s an optional add-on for an extra premium. This may suit those without children who have no plans to start a family and don’t want to have a benefit on their policy that they won’t use.
As with most aspects of Critical Illness Insurance, children’s cover isn’t created equal. There are some key differences to look for:
Look beyond the core cover. All policies at their core pay out if you develop one of a select list of critical illnesses. Where the best Critical Illness Insurance providers differentiate themselves is in the additional benefits they offer.
These benefits commonly include:
Each insurer has a different maximum benefit they’ll cover you for. For some insurers, there’s no limit. However, most Critical Illness Insurance providers cap this at around £3 million.
For the vast majority of people, the £3 million limit should be more than sufficient. Premiums would likely be significant for anything above this anyway.
Some providers pay out on a sliding scale if you don’t quite meet the necessary severity for the illness you develop as your insurer outlines.
For example, if you develop a low-grade, in-situ cancer and catch it early, the insurer may not pay the full benefit because you don’t meet the full definition of cancer in the policy documents.
Other insurers offer a proportionate benefit (commonly the lower of £25,000 or 25% of your benefit) if you develop a less serious, or ‘additional’, illness that isn’t quite as severe as the main conditions the policy covers.
Most insurers have a survival period. This is a set number of days you must live after your diagnosis before you can claim. Survival periods can vary from 10 days to 2 weeks or more, so check carefully.
There are a lot of factors which affect the cost of Critical Illness Insurance. They’re split into personal and policy factors.
To calculate the premiums in the table below, we’ve had to make a number of assumptions about each individual. For example, we’ve assumed they are:
These premiums are the cheapest available that meet the above criteria. However, the cheapest policy won’t necessarily be the best.
One provider might have more robust definitions, better additional benefits or a range of other factors that are an improvement over the cheapest option.
25 Years Old | 35 Years Old | 45 Years Old | Decreasing Cover |
|---|---|---|
£33.77 | £48.68 | £84.80 | Level Cover |
£39.75 | £67.97 | £122.48 |
As an independent insurance broker we compare all of the leading UK insurers for our clients.
Each insurer has its own unique coverage. This includes number of conditions they cover and the definitions of those conditions, as well as areas such as additional benefits where insurers really set each other apart.
In addition to this expert guide we have also written expert product reviews for each of the top UK critical illness providers individually including Aviva, Legal & General and Vitality.
Maximum Benefit | Unlimited |
Conditions Covered |
|
ABI+ Definitions | 18 |
Survival Period | 10 days |
Children’s Cover? | ✅
As standard, covering children between the age of 30 days and 22 years old. It pays:
|
Claims Paid | 94% in 2019, totalling £41.9 million | Additional Benefits |
Aegon offers its Policy Plus with Critical Illness Cover. This includes:
| The Drewberry Verdict |
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| High number of ABI+ definitions |
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| While Aegon includes children’s cover free as standard, it only covers children from 30 days old, not from birth |
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| Fairly minimal additional benefits compared to other insurers |
Maximum Benefit | Unlimited |
Conditions Covered |
Enhanced Cover
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ABI+ Definitions | 16 |
Survival Period | 10 days |
Children’s Cover? | An optional add-on for an extra premium (💷) for children from birth to age 22, paying:
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Claims Paid | 398 claims totalling £30.3 million in 2019 | Additional Benefits |
Smart Health is AIG’s main additional benefits offering. It includes:
| The Drewberry Verdict |
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| Smart Health provides an excellent range of additional benefits, among the best in the market |
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| Child death benefit of £10,000 (including for children stillborn after 24 weeks gestation) when you pay for the optional children’s cover add-on is one of the highest in the market |
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| While AIG publishes the monetary value of the claims it pays, it does not publish the percentage of claims which were successful |
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| No children’s cover as standard. While this does mean you don’t pay for a benefit you won’t use if you don’t have children, for many insurers it’s free automatically with your policy. |
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| Only covers two additional critical illnesses which pay a lower benefit as standard. Many other insurers cover more than this. For access to further conditions that mean a smaller benefit, you must pay for enhanced cover. |
Maximum Benefit | £3 million (£2 million with TPD cover) |
Conditions Covered |
Upgraded Critical Illness Cover
|
ABI+ Definitions | 19 |
Survival Period | 10 days |
Children’s Cover? | ✅
As standard for children from 30 days old until their 18th birthday (21st birthday if in full-time education), paying:
Upgraded Children’s Benefit
|
Claims Paid | 93.1% in 2019, totally £353 million | Additional Benefits |
Aviva DigiCare+ Free as standard, Aviva DigiCare+ is a health and wellbeing service offering:
You can also opt to pay an extra £36 annually for three Digital GP appointments per year. Optional Add-Ons for an Extra Premium (💷)
| The Drewberry Verdict |
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| Aviva DigiCare+ is a great suite of additional benefits available for free |
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| You can pay to add various additional benefits to your policy, from fracture cover to global treatment. This is fairly unique among Critical Illness Insurance providers. |
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| Uses 19 ABI+ definitions, one of the highest in the market |
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| While Aviva offers a digital GP service via Aviva DigiCare+, which not every insurer does, it’s at extra cost and limited to three appointments per year. |
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| TPD cover isn’t standard; it’s an optional add-on for an extra premium. Also, if you add TPD cover, your maximum available benefit falls from £3 million to £2 million. |
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| With the free child cover, Aviva doesn’t cover children from birth as some providers do. Cover starts from when your child turns 30 days old unless you pay extra for upgraded child cover. |
Maximum Benefit | £3 million |
Conditions Covered |
|
ABI+ Definitions | 18 |
Survival Period | 14 days |
Children’s Cover? | An optional add-on for an extra premium (💷) covering children from birth to age 23, which pays:
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Claims Paid | n.a. | Additional Benefits |
| The Drewberry Verdict |
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| TPD included as standard — for many insurers, this is an optional add-on for an extra premium |
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| Guardian pays at least some of your benefit for any diagnosis of cancer, regardless of severity, including low-risk non-melanoma skin cancer |
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| In many cases, Guardian won’t require extensive medical evidence before paying out, just the word of a UK consultant that you have a condition |
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| If you take out a policy and Guardian later improves its definitions, you benefit from these updated definitions too rather than just new clients, which is unique |
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| If you pay for child cover, you choose a payout of £10,000-£100,000 (up to 100% of your benefit). With most insurers, you get a fixed percent of your benefit. You could therefore get more if your child develops an illness with Guardian. |
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| The optional paid-for child cover covers children from birth up to age 23, regardless of education status. This is the longest term in the market. It also provides a high child death benefit of £10,000. |
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| Guardian’s survival period of 14 days is among the longest in the market |
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| Child cover is an optional add-on for an extra premium. While this means you don’t pay for cover you won’t use if you don’t have children, it’s free as standard with many other providers. |
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| As a relatively new insurer, Guardian doesn’t yet publish its claims data |
Maximum Benefit |
|
Conditions Covered |
Critical Illness Extra |
ABI+ Definitions | 17 |
Survival Period | 14 days |
Children’s Cover? | ✅
As standard, covering children between the age of 30 days and 22 years old. It pays:
Children’s Critical Illness Extra
|
Claims Paid? | 92% of all claims in 2019 totalling £224 million | Additional Benefits |
| The Drewberry Verdict |
👍
| Standard children’s cover includes some fairly unique features, such as financial support with childcare if you become critically ill and an accidental hospitalisation benefit |
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|
❌
| Minimal additional benefits |
❌
| Only two additional critical illnesses covered as standard |
❌
| Survival period of 14 days is one of the longest in the market |
Maximum Benefit | Unlimited |
Conditions Covered |
Enhanced Claim Payments Included as standard, of the 48 above conditions there are 17 which LV pays a higher benefit for due to the severe financial impact they’ll likely have on your life. It pays:
|
ABI+ Definitions | 16 |
Survival Period | 14 days |
Children’s Cover? | ✅
As standard, covering children from birth to age 23 without a survival period. It pays:
Your child can convert their cover into an adult policy without medical underwriting if they do it within 6 months of their 23rd birthday. The maximum cover available if they convert the cover is the lower of £25,000 or 50% of your benefit. Enhanced Cover
|
Claims Paid | 88% of claims in 2019 totalling £23 million | Additional Benefits |
LV’s main additional benefits offering is LV= Doctor Services. This offers:
Also available is a cost of diagnosis of cancer benefit — a £1,000 payment if you develop one of the cancers the policy covers. | The Drewberry Verdict |
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| Standard child cover protects children from birth to age 23, regardless of education status. This is the longest coverage for children in the market. |
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| LV doesn’t apply its survival period to children’s claims |
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| £1,000 cost of cancer diagnosis benefit on top of your payout if you develop cancer |
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| Enhanced cover for 17 conditions as standard, which LV offers a higher payout for due to the considerable financial impact they’ll have on your life |
👍
| Good range of additional benefits, including a remote GP service |
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| 88% payout rate in 2019 is on the low side |
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| 14 day survival period is the longest in the market |
Maximum Benefit | £3 million (£1.2 million with increasing cover) |
Conditions Covered |
|
ABI+ Definitions | 14 |
Survival Period | 10 days |
Children’s Cover? | Basic Cover ` It pays the lower of £25,000 or 50% of your benefit if your child develops one of the adult critical illnesses, including TPD. Enhanced Cover
|
Claims Paid | 92.6% of claims in 2019, totalling £150.1 million | Additional Benefits |
Royal London’s main additional benefits offering is Helping Hand. This offers:
| The Drewberry Verdict |
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| Includes TPD cover as standard. For some insurers, it’s an optional add-on for an extra premium. |
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| If you add children’s cover, it includes child TPD cover. Few providers offer this with child cover. |
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| Royal London’s additional benefits service, Helping Hand, offers support after a critical diagnosis such as cancer, heart attack or stroke. This includes speech therapy for stroke survivors. |
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| Children’s cover is an optional add-on for an extra premium. While this does mean you don’t pay for a service you won’t use if you don’t have children, many other providers offer it free. |
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| Number of ABI+ definitions is on the low side |
Maximum Benefit | £3 million (capped at £1.5 million for TPD claims) |
Conditions Covered |
|
ABI+ Definitions | 14 |
Survival Period | 10 days |
Children’s Cover? | ✅
As standard, covering children from birth to age 22. It pays:
|
Claims Paid | 93% in 2019, totalling £84 million | Additional Benefits |
Scottish Widows Care is Scottish Widows’ main additional benefits offering. It centres around a team of dedicated nurses available on a telephone helpline, offering support with:
You can also access a course of therapy, for example counselling, complementary or occupational therapy where appropriate. | The Drewberry Verdict |
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| Get a booster payment if you develop one of four neurological conditions (Parkinson’s disease, Parkinson’s plus syndrome, dementia and motor neurone disease) aged 45 or under |
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| £10,000 child death benefit as standard, one of the highest available in the market |
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| Scottish Widows covers one of the lowest overall number of conditions in the market |
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| While TPD cover is standard (many insurers require you to add it for an extra premium), Scottish Widows caps it at £1.5 million rather than the full £3 million maximum available if you develop one of the other full payment conditions |
Maximum Benefit | £3 million |
Conditions Covered | Vitality offers Serious Illness Cover rather than Critical Illness Cover. This covers more conditions, with a severity ranking which decides how much of your benefit you’ll get. As standard, you get cover for 153 conditions on a sliding scale of severity. The policy pays between 15% and 100% of your benefit depending on the severity of your condition. Serious Illness Cover Booster It also boosts your payout from 100% to 200% of your benefit if you develop one of the long-term debilitating diseases Vitality deems to have a major financial impact, such as motor neurone disease or total blindness. Serious Illness Cover Plus The sliding scale for Serious Illness Cover Plus runs from 5% to 100% of your benefit depending on the severity of the condition. |
ABI+ Conditions | As Vitality offers Serious Illness Cover rather than Critical Illness Cover, ABI+ definitions apply differently. However, with Serious Illness Cover, Vitality covers 38 conditions that no other insurer does. This rises to 61 conditions no other insurer covers if you pay for Serious Illness Cover Plus. |
Survival Period | 14 days |
Children’s Cover? | Family Benefit
Children’s Cover
|
Claims Paid | 92.9% in 2019 | Additional Benefits |
Vitality’s additional benefits centre on Vitality Select. It offers discounts on certain fitness tracking devices, plus access to certain reward partners. You can add Vitality Optimiser, which widens the discount partners to many high street retailers, gyms, spas and also provides other rewards. You could cut premiums by staying active and collecting Vitality points. If you earn a certain number of points through activity, you reach bronze, silver, gold or platinum status. | The Drewberry Verdict |
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| Although not every condition triggers a full payout, Vitality’s Serious Illness Cover protects against far more conditions than most Critical Illness policies |
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| If you pay to add child cover, you choose any benefit you like if your child becomes ill (up to £100,000). Most insurers only pay a percentage of your benefit with child cover, so Vitality potentially offers a higher benefit if your child is ill. |
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| Even without adding child cover, you get a £5,000 benefit for pregnancy complications. This includes foetal death in utero / stillbirth after 20 weeks gestation. With most insurers, you only get a payout for this after 24 weeks. |
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| Some child cover is standard via Family Benefit. However, for meaningful protection, you must pay extra for full cover. While this means you don’t pay for a benefit you won’t use if you have no children, many insurers offer it free. |
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| Survival period of 14 days is the longest in the market |
❌
| While Vitality’s rewards and discounts programme is wide-ranging, as far as other additional benefits go Vitality is limited compared to other providers |
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| The child hospitalisation benefit as part of the paid-for children’s cover only kicks in after your child spends 14 consecutive nights in hospital. This is shorter with most other providers. |
Maximum Benefit | £5 million (£3 million with TPD cover) |
Conditions Covered |
Critical Illness Select
|
ABI+ Definitions | 18 |
Survival Period | 10 days |
Children’s Cover? | Children’s Benefit
Enhanced Children’s Benefit
|
Claims Paid | 90% of claims in 2019, totalling £76.4 million | Additional Benefits |
Included free as standard, Zurich’s main additional benefits offering is Zurich Support Services. This offers:
Multi Fracture Cover | The Drewberry Verdict |
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| Zurich lets you pay extra for fracture cover, which few other Critical Illness Insurance providers offer as an option. |
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|
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| Standard cover only includes two additional conditions that mean a smaller payout. For further cover, you must pay extra for Critical Illness Select. Many providers cover more additional conditions as standard. |
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| Children’s cover is an optional add-on for an extra premium. While this does mean you don’t pay for a benefit you won’t use if you don’t have children, with many providers it’s free as standard. |
❌
| TPD cover is an optional add-on for an extra premium. With some providers, it’s free as standard. |
❌
| No cover for stillbirth or foetal death in utero, even if you pay to add children’s cover to a standard policy. This is only available if you pay for Critical Illness Select and pay extra for enhanced children’s benefit. Then you get cover from 24 weeks gestation. |
Most people understandably want to choose a policy by picking the insurer that’s the most likely to pay a claim when they need it the most.
However, it’s actually fairly hard to distinguish one provider from another in this area. Payout rates across the industry are not only higher than many people assume but are also fairly uniform.
As you can see in the table below, in 2019 almost all insurers paid out on more than 90% of the claims they received.
Insurer | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|
Aegon | 94% | 93% | 94% |
Aviva | 93.2% | 92.6% | 93.1% |
Scottish Widows | 93.6% | 94.1% | 93% |
Vitality | 92% | 91.2% | 92.9% |
Royal London | 91.2% | 91.2% | 92.6% |
Legal & General | 92% | 93% | 92% |
Zurich | 95% | 91% | 90% |
Liverpool Victoria | 88% | 89% | 88% |
AIG | 93% | 94% | n.a. |
Ultimately, this depends on your needs and circumstances, as well as your point of view.
You can use a Critical Illness Insurance payout to repay your mortgage, keep up with your bills or adapt your home to meet a new disability.
Unfortunately, none of us know what life has in store for us. A serious illness could strike at any time. Statistics show the risk of many critical illnesses is rising in the UK, even among younger people of working age.
Critical Illness Insurance and Income Protection both pay a benefit if you become ill. It can therefore be hard to tell them apart or know which one would work best for you.
Find out the difference between Critical Illness Cover and Income Protection here →
However, in brief the main differences are in the:
Critical Illness Insurance pays a lump sum of your choosing, while Income Protection pays a monthly benefit of a proportion of your earnings.
With Critical Illness Cover, to claim you must develop a critical condition in the policy at a severity your insurer dictates.
On the other hand, Income Protection pays out simply if you can’t do your job after any accident or sickness.
The most common conditions Critical Illness Insurance providers pay out for are serious illnesses such as cancer, heart attacks and strokes. Income Protection, meanwhile, pays out for anything that medically stops you working, from cancer to a bad back.
If you claim for a full payment condition with Critical Illness Cover, the policy ends. You get your lump sum but nothing further, even if you can never work again.
This is opposed to Long Term Income Protection, which continues paying a monthly benefit until you retire if you can’t ever return to work.
Terminal Illness Insurance is usually included free with Life Insurance. It pays the policy benefit early if the policyholder becomes terminally ill (where a doctor has said they have less than 12 months to live).
Critical Illness Insurance, on the other hand, pays out if you develop a critical illness of a specified severity, such as cancer, heart attack or stroke.
The two options sound similar but are in fact very different and not interchangeable. It’s possible to recover from a critical illness, for example, whereas that’s not the case after a terminal prognosis.
Total Permanent Disability Cover (TPD) pays out if you are left totally and permanently disabled and unable to work due to illness or injury.
To make a TPD claim, you must suffer a severe life-changing disability that has no medical prospect of improvement. There are fairly strict criteria to make a total permanent disability claim.
No, you don’t typically pay tax on a Critical Illness Insurance payout.
This is because you usually pay premiums from income you’ve already paid tax on, i.e. your wages. That means HMRC has already effectively taxed you once and therefore allows you to receive a Critical Illness Insurance claim tax-free.
You have two options to set up Critical Illness Cover. You can either go direct to an insurer or buy cover through an adviser, such as Drewberry. It’s important to recognise the difference as one provides you with far more protection than the other.
Going direct is a non-advised sale. You personally make the decision to buy a policy, which means there’s no financial protection if it’s inappropriate. The responsibility is on your shoulders.
Not only this, but going direct often involves more work. To get the best Critical Illness Insurance, you’ll need to approach every insurer and compare quotes from all of them to get the best deal.
And it doesn’t stop there. You’ll then have to compare critical illness policies by number of illnesses covered and the definitions of those illnesses. This involves a lot of reading of fine print and interpretation of medical and insurance jargon.
On the other hand, an adviser offering a whole of market advised sale, such as an expert from Drewberry, is fully responsible for any policy they arrange. This offers you more protection than going it alone.
An adviser will consider your circumstances fully to make sure you get the best cover for your needs. We’re here to compare every insurer on your behalf so you can be sure you’ve got the best deal.
We also take all the heavy lifting off your desk, looking through insurers, their policies and their definitions to find you the best terms.
We’re proud of the service we provide and are delighted that our clients love it as well. We have 3017 and growing independent reviews rating us at 4.92 / 5.
With around ten major UK Critical Illness Insurance providers to compare, this involves sifting through a lot of information.
We search for the best Critical Illness Insurance providers for our clients day in, day out. We know the market like the back of our hand, so we’re happy to lend you a hand.
We started Drewberry™ because we were tired of being treated like a number.
We all deserve a first class service when it comes to issues as important as protecting our health and our finances. Below are just a few reasons why it makes sense to talk to us.
For help and fee-free advice on comparing the UK’s best insurance companies, don’t be afraid to pop us a call. We’re here on 02084327333, or drop us an email on help@drewberry.co.uk.
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