Critical Illness Insurance: What Is It and Who Needs It?
If you’re lucky, you’ve probably never had to use critical illness insurance (sometimes called catastrophic illness insurance). You’ve maybe never even heard of it. But in the event of a big health emergency, such as cancer, heart attack or stroke, critical illness insurance could be the only thing protecting you from financial ruin. Many people assume they’re fully protected with a standard health insurance plan, but the exorbitant costs of treating life-threatening illnesses are usually more than any plan will cover. Read on to learn more about critical illness insurance and whether it's something you and your family should consider.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
. Critical illness insurance provides additional coverage for medical emergencies like heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
. Because these emergencies or illnesses often incur greater than average medical costs, these policies pay out cash to help cover those overruns where traditional health insurance may fall short.
. These policies come at a relatively low cost. However, the instances that they will cover are generally limited to a few illnesses or emergencies.

Covered critical illnesses
Your Critical Illness benefit can be paid out for the following qualifying critical illnesses:
. Heart attack
. Life threatening cancer
. Loss of hearing, speech or vision
. Major organ transplant
. Paralysis
. Coma
. Renal failure
. Stroke
. Carcinoma in situ
. Coronary artery bypass graft