Critical Illness Cover for South Africans
Old Mutual in South Africa provides consumers with a wide range of insurance products including critical illness cover. Their products suit the lives of busy South Africans.
Insurance offers critical illness cover too. And when it comes to this insurance, people have realized that this does not apply to the elderly. This one applies to all ages, from the very young to the very old.
We have all been ill in our life and we also know how recovery from a more serious illness can be a pretty draining time – physically, spiritually and mentally.
There are many times serious financial implications. Many people will tell you that a serious illness can leave you bankrupt.
The four phases of a serious illness and its implications
A serious illness usually consists of four phases –
- the first phase is when you go to a doctor and he diagnoses a serious illness
- the second phase is when you have been diagnosed and you discuss with your doctor the way forward
- the third phase is the recovery stage
- the fourth phase is the financial implications of the disease. This will include medication and perhaps further treatment with more expenses getting around to different clinics to help with your recovery.
Sometimes the financial implications surrounding a critical disease don’t only affect you – they can have long lasting impacts on your other family members as well.
Critical Illness Cover – Have You Got Medical Support?
If you have a good medical aid as well as gap cover, you will probably have received support in the first and the second phases of your illness. But what about phase three and four? Old Mutual has an insurance called the Greenlight Severe Illness Cover. This is 
specifically designed for phases three and four.
Under the Greenlight Insurance you will find Elite Severe Illness PLUS benefit as well as Elite Severe Illness benefit. These are Greenlights ‘stand alone benefit’ or the ‘accelerator benefit’. There are some 68 illnesses covered under these benefits as well as 16 mild illnesses, including 9 early diagnosed illnesses (7 of these are early cancers).
Cover is also provided for 28 severe illnesses in children. If you have a child and he or she suffers from any of the specified illnesses, Old Mutual will pay out a tax-free lump sum. 2 children per benefit can be claimed. Amount of cover varies and can be anything from R100 000 to R6 million.
Critical Illness Cover – How Long do You want Cover For?
You will be able to decide to protect yourself for your whole life (known as whole-life cover) or you can choose a specified period (known as term-cover). The Elite Severe Illness PLUS Benefit is a stand-alone benefit. It allows you to claim more than one time for unrelated severe illnesses. There will be no reductions in the cover amount after submitting a claim which means if you claimed for cancer right now and a stroke or heart attack sometime in the future, you will receive 100% cover every time.
The Elite Severe Illness Benefit is an accelerator benefit. Any of your claims will reduce the cover amount after you have claimed. There is also a benefit included called the Lifestyle enhancer. This boosts your cover up to 200% should your quality of life be impacted on by a stroke, accidental brain injury, coma or heart attack. Qualifying HIV positive patients can also benefit from the Greenlight Elite Severe Illness Benefits.
Critical Illness Cover – Take control of the Big Four
The ‘Big Four’ serious illnesses are stroke, cancer, heart attack and coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG). As these account between 50% and 90% of all illness claims in the industry, can you afford not to take out this essential insurance? Sort this out today!
Get life insurance and critical illness cover by completing and sending the form above
All info was correct at time of publishing