What is Critical illness Coverage?

As the world discovers more virus and bacteria of which could be life threatening, new definition of illness is added under the Critical Illness coverage. Which will include the basic 4 things like

1. Heart Attack

2. Stroke cerebrovascular accident

3. Cancer

4. Coronary bypass surgery

Among the big insurance companies in Canada, some of them will cover up to 25 types of illness and 5 special Child Critical Illness like

1. Cerebral palsy

2. Congenital heart disease

3. Cystic fibrosis

4. Muscular dystrophy

5. Type 1 diabetes mellitus

How to plan for Critical Illness Insurance?

First of all, take a few minute to answer these questions.

Are you single or married?

1. Who is the primary income of the household?

2. If you should become terminally-ill, who will take care of you? both physically and financially?

3. Physically meaning helping you eat, go to the washroom, bathe, move around, get dressed. This can be basically anyone, in the case of a married couple, it would usually be the other half.

4. Financially could turn into a very time consuming and labor intensive care. Which will result in a drastic loss of income for both of the couple.

Perhaps it is a heavy topic, but its very clear to see that anyone with a financial responsibility will be a guaranteed candidate to take a look at this Critical Illness Insurance.

For example

Justin is 25 years old, recently just married, wife, Shelly is 24 years old. Justin works at a construction site making $50,000/year, Shelly is an Accoutant making $60,000/year.

On the surface its great that they make $110,000 before tax. But if one person should fall terminally ill, in this case, Shelly.（Justin）

Before tax income quickly drops from

$110,000(Combined) to $50,000 (Justin)

This is IF, Justin still goes to work full time. But most likely Justin will only be able to work 30% of the time depending on the condition of Shelly.

30% income of $50,000 from Justin is only $15,000.

If Shelly and Justin did not have a huge saving, now the income has dropped from

$110,000 to $15,000

These questions rise up very quickly

1. Car Loan

2. Credit Card Payment

3. Grocery

4. Utility Bills

5. Rent / Mortgage

6. Etc

So you see, this is where Critical Illness Insurance comes in

When Shelly is diagnosed with Critical Illness, the family physician will write up something called a "Appointed Physician Statement" saying that the illness is verified as Critical.

So in this case, if Shelly and Justin had Critical Illness Insurance of $200,000 each on their own.

Shelly or Justin can take this Physician Statement and apply for the benefit. Which will take about 1-2 weeks of time to get a payout. Sometimes the payout is faster or slower depends on the completeness of the information required.

With a payout of $200,000, what will be easier for Justin and Shelly?

1. Financial Security

2. Peace of mind

3. If terminally ill, Shelly can dispose this money as she wishes, (bucket-list) or leave behind some money for Justin and other family members.

if you have any questions or would like to lean more about it, you can contact me at

sungyentsai@gmail.com