When someone turns 22 and they are no longer covered by their parents policy they can apply for their own cover without underwriting of up to £25,000 or £50,000 if both parents are covered.
Old Mutual Wealth has made 80 enhancements to its critical illness cover – adding severe mental illness and cancer in situ with surgery.
The insurer is also improving its children’s cover with eight child-specific conditions.
When someone turns 22 and they are no longer covered by their parents policy they can apply for their own cover without underwriting of up to £25,000 or £50,000 if both parents are covered.
Paul Roberts, head of protection at Old Mutual Wealth, said: “We all hope that a critical illness won’t happen to us or our loved ones. However, while we hope for the best, it is prudent to prepare for the worst.
“Our cover aims to be comprehensive as standard, avoiding the need to gamble by choosing which bolt on you may or more importantly may not want to include.
“Over the past year we have assessed our customer feedback and claims experiences to better understand how we can improve our products.”
He added: “We have then designed our upgrade to not only provide cover for a wide-ranging set of illnesses but so that it also provides additional financial support for longer term illnesses, children’s cover and options to reinstate cover after a claim.
“Similarly, as standard, we include our There For You service which allows people to seek emotional support, or practical advice at any time.”
To make a mental illness claim there a number of boxes that need to be ticked: you have to have been admitted to a psychiatric ward for 14 consecutive nights, have ‘chronic unremitting symptoms' and have not responded to comprehensive management and treatment for more than year; resulting in the inability to perform any type of work for at least a year.
In 2017, Old Mutual Wealth paid 94.6% of all critical illness claims.
