Planners recognise need to add to life policies

Norwich Union Lifehas experienced an increase in demand from financial advisers and their clients to add critical illness reinstatement policies to their life products as a safeguard against becoming uninsurable in the future.

According to Norwich Union Life managing director, Allan Griffiths, one in five life insurance clients are adding critical illness reinstatement to their policies.

Griffiths says financial advisers have recognised the need to protect their clients from the potential to suffer from more than one critical illness.

Norwich Union Life’s Critical Illness Reinstatement option offers repurchase of unrelated critical illness cover 12 months after the payment of a first event critical illness claim.

According to figures released by Norwich, approximately 90 per cent of all life insurance claims are attributed to heart attack, stroke, cancer and coronary disease. Due to medical breakthroughs many people are surviving critical illness and receiving only partial life insurance pay outs and becoming ‘uninsurable’ for any future ailments.

Griffiths says it is essential that financial advisers are aware of all the different medical levels of conditions to ensure a client is adequately covered.

“Financial advisers need to consider the possible reaction to any life threatening condition - if a client is going to want to stop working straight away, they need to be adequately covered to be able to do so,” he says.