Legal & General Critical Illness Extra (CIx)
L&G’s new critical illness insurance upgrade option is called Critical Illness Extra, or abbreviated to CIx. It offers high end cover, with 95 conditions covered, while its Standard CI cover, which includes fewer conditions, remains available too. Both include basic child cover too, and parents can upgrade that to children’s CI Extra cover if they wish
There are new 100% payout conditions for (on adult policies): brain injury; cauda equine syndrome; drug resistant epilepsy; heart failure; intensive care (min seven days); interstitial lung disease; Kennedy’s disease; myasthenia gravis; neuromyslitis optica; Parkinson’s plus syndromes; peripheral vascular disease; pneumonectomy; pulmonary artery surgery; severe Crohn’s disease, and syringomelia or syringobulbia.
For some conditions the definition has been improved or widened. These are: benign brain tumour; blindness; cardiomyopathy; open heart surgery, and Parkinson’s disease.
Additional covers pay the lower of 25% of the sum insured or £25,000 and include: aortic aneurysm; aplastic anaemia; carotid artery stenosis; central retinal artery or vein occlusion; cerebral or spinal aneurysm; cerebral or spinal arteriovenous malformation, Crohn's disease; diabetes mellitus type 1; drug resistant epilepsy; Guillain-Barre syndrome; less advanced cancer (21 are covered); other cancer in situ or neuroendocrine tumour of low malignant potential; non-invasive gastrointestinal stromal tumour; pituitary gland tumour; removal of one or more lobes of the lung; removal of urinary bladder; significant visual loss, and third degree burns (10% of body area).
Nurse Support Services is included for all Critical Illness customers.
Comment: L&G says it has a continuing improvement philosophy and this new option adds further choice to its CI range, along with recently launched optional Children’s Critical Illness Extra, and GP24 virtual GP service.
Having a plus version allows advisers to illustrate both and to demonstrate how having the best cover costs little more than standard cover. Being able to compare means many clients will probably choose CIx, knowing this gives them the widest cover and avoids the heartbreaking situation of finding you have one of the ‘other’ conditions but that it’s not covered because you wanted to save money.
Plus points: A new CI option to get L&G’s best cover; Extra is available on children’s cover too; Standard cover remains as an option.
Not so plus points: Why would anyone actually choose Standard cover – instead, a slightly lower premium on Extra would ensure wider coverage for little loss of benefit; Adds complexity to some extent.
Website: http://www.legalandgeneral.com.
Rating (max 10): Innovation: 8. Overall: 8.5. Gold
Tags: CI; L&G