Critical Illness Insurance and Disability Insurance: The Basics

Critical illness insurance and disability insurance are both popular types of policies. However, you should not mistake either or both of them as subtypes of a life insurance plan. A life insurance policy is often geared towards benefiting those who are left behind by the enrollee meaning, upon the death of the enrolled person his or her benefits will be carried over to the name of the benefactors. Critical illness and disability insurance plans benefit the enrollee himself. Moreover, the benefits are reaped in critical times of medical and other financial aid so in essence the enrollee is still alive while the benefits of such policies are received.

But if you look at each of the two closely, they are actually quite different in form. It was said that a critical illness insurance policy has been developed by some doctor from South Africa who has been so concerned about the critical conditions of his patients. Although the patients have standard forms of life insurances under their name, they cannot use it when they suffered from dangerous illnesses such as heart attacks. Also, they are not amenable to receive any financial aid during their rehabilitation period from the said life insurance plan. Accordingly, this is the cause which spurned critical insurance policies.

Under a critical insurance plan, the person who becomes diagnosed with a serious illness will be given a paid his due benefits if he is able to recover within a specified time period. The usual coverage of the serious illnesses are heart attack, cancer, and stroke among others. However, other companies add more roster of serious illnesses for benefit guidelines. The specified time period required for recovery is usually a month but it may exceed depending on the insurance company's policies. But for critical illness insurance, family health histories are really reviewed. This greatly affects whether your enrollment will be approved under such policy.

Meanwhile, disability insurance is gained after the disability has effected. What happens here is that a monthly benefit will be received by the plan holder, which is very different from the one time payment setup of a critical illness plan. The monthly benefit will continue as log as the person is not able to find work and is still in the process of recovery. However simple it may seem, disability insurance plans greatly vary accordingly. There are many percentage considerations before the monthly benefits are given and the person's salary becomes the basis for the amount to be received. Moreover, there's also a waiting period being employed by the insurance company before the benefit gets cleared and becomes available for the plan holder.

Both of these plans have great advantages, but such advantages would really vary according to the insurance company they are enforced. General regulations are only used as guidelines and structures, but insurance companies would of course use their own deals and features to market critical illness insurance as well as disability insurance. Further research is really important before you settle on either policies being offered to you.