Critical illness or income protection? Which are you least likely to be diddled on?

[10toGo]

DH is leaving a job where he had excellent sick pay and death in service benefits.

We need to sort out some kind of critical illness cover or income protection cover.

I’ve done research but to be honest it seems like the insurance companies do their very best to wriggle out of things no matter what.

Can anyone recommend a company please?

We sorted ours through London and Country when we did our mortgage. They were able to shop the market for us. Ended up going with Legal and General in the end but L&C did all the paperwork for us.

The only reason these policies don't pay out are either because something wasn't disclosed on application, or because you haven't reached the threshold for claim.

Income Protection is more likely to pay out, as usually if a GP certified that you cannot work for to accident or sickness, that is all the criteria is.

Critical illness you need to reach a certain severity for many conditions (for example stage 1 breast cancer doesn't pay out, stage 2 onwards does)
Vitality do Serious illness instead of Critical illness which payout on less severe claims, but only a portion of cover amount.

L&G, Aviva, Royal London, Aegon all paid more than 95% of claims last year.

If you are unsure what you need, speak to a financial adviser, rather than getting it wrong yourself.
There are no fees to pay for Protection Advice as they would receive commission from the provider

Just do a comparison website and make sure you know what you actually want. critical illness requires a diagnoses and is very specific. Usually pays a lump sump like life insurance.

Income protection pays a set amount per month for a set period of time when you're unemployed (it won't cover you for voluntary unemployment). You need to check both the waiting periods (the time before they will pay out) and how long the payments last for).

Critical Illness is a must, if you can afford it, pleased I took out a small policy, when I was diagnosed with totally out of the blue with MS, the policy paid out very quickly. You never know what’s around the corner, it’s a policy that you never want to make a claim on.

Following as trying to puzzle this out too

I would love to take out critical illness but at 45 and in good health I was recently quoted £150 on a search engine - it is way beyond what I can afford.

Critical Illness premiums have really risen, my policy was about £12 p/m I was 32 at the time and 40 when I claimed on it.