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CRITICAL ILLNESS INSURANCE - CII Back in 1991, Transamerica Life Assurance (the company with the pyramid building) was considering introducing Critical Illness Insurance (CII) into Canada. However, their CEO of operations for Canada (who was an American), felt there wouldn’t be a market for it because the Canadian government already provided FREE health care coverage that was considered to be amongst the best in the world. Boy, how times have changed. For those who don’t know,critical illness insurance pays the insured cash in the event that he or she becomes critically ill. It should not be confused with disability insurance, which pays a portion of the insured’s salary if he or she becomes injured and can’t work. CII is intended to pay for top quality medical care wherever the insured chooses to get it, once the insured is diagnosed with an illness such as: cancer, heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, lupus or any other potentially life-threatening illness. The thought is that once you’ve been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, money should be no obstacle to the best-quality health care that you can get. If the insured is diagnosed with cancer, for instance, he or she would have the resources available to pay the top cancer specialist at the Mayo clinic, or Massachusetts General Hospital, or wherever. Transamerica eventually did introduce CII in Canada in 1994, and it originally was not received well. However, with the current state of the health-care system, and the looming health-care crisis given the country's aging population, CII is really becoming a popular insurance product among Canadians. Generally disability insurance pays, at the most, 70% of your former salary; and this is in conjunction with what the federal government pays. There is also a significant waiting period after the onset of the injury or illness before any amount is paid out. So knowing this and the much publicized wait times for major surgery in this country, (Mr. Martin has promised to do something about that), it’s not very hard to see how a company like Transamerica is successfully selling these policies to Canadians. Their particular CII product offers direct and immediate access to the LIFE ADVANTAGE network, which includes the top health providers in the USA, thereby bypassing the Canadian health-care system entirely. Their insurance also covers the travel and accommodation costs for not only the patient, but one loved one as well. Obviously, like any type of insurance, you have to qualify for it, and those with a family history of the types of diseases mentioned above will pay higher premiums. Also, the older you get the more that CII will cost. Given that more than 20,000 CII policies were written in Canada in 2003, it’s clear that Canadians who can afford this type of insurance are deciding to get it, and not take their chances on the Canadian health-care system in the event they get sick. Cheers, Hugh |
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