An illness is something that can affect us in many different ways. Of course, most of us suffer from mild illnesses and health problems now and again and whilst they can be unpleasant and annoying they do not tend to have any lasting effect on our lives. However, there are also people who fall victim to critical illness which can not only be very serious, even potentially fatal, but can also have a serious and lasting impact on their own lives and those of their loves ones.

A critical illness is not something that we can foretell the coming of – we all hope that we will live long and relatively healthy lives but the fact is that anyone can find themselves falling victim to an illness such as this. Whilst there is little that we can do to stop this, one thing that we can do is take measures to minimise on the impact that a critical illness can have on us and our family in terms of finances. A critical illness could result in you losing your income through being unable to work and earn a living, which in turn could lead to all sorts of problems. With protective cover in place, such as MLC Critical Illness Insurance cover, you have the peace of mind that if you do become critically ill you and your family will not be left with the stress of money problems and having to cope with this in addition to the stress of the illness itself.

Choose the right critical illness insurance cover for your needs

With MLC Critical Illness Insurance cover you can choose from two different levels of cover, which means that you can ensure that your cover caters for both your needs as well as your budget. The two levels of cover that are available as part of the MLC Critical Illness Insurance plan are:

• Standard cover, which offers protection for some of the most common critical illnesses. This is a lower cost form of cover that is ideal for the budget conscious
• Plus cover, which is a more comprehensive and protective plan, covering a wider range of critical conditions and offering a range of optional extras for those that want to tailor their plan more specifically

The MLC Critical Illness Insurance plan offers a range of invaluable features, helping to ensure that you get cover that is both suited to your needs and offers value for money in terms of cost. Some of the features of this cover include:

• The ability to increase your cover due to changes in your personal or working life without having to undertake any further medicals
• Reimbursement of up to $5000 for the preparation of a written financial plan, which has been prepared by a qualified financial expert, if a lump sum payment of $100,000 or more has been paid out to you
• Child support benefit, where a lump sum of $10,000 is paid out if your child first suffers from an eligible condition or dies (you must have cover of $100,000 or more to qualify)
• The ability to freeze your stepped premiums from the age of thirty onwards, which means that you will pay the same amount rather than increasing amounts but your benefit level will reduce each year
• A payout of $5000 if the stand alone critical illness benefit cannot be paid out due to death occurring within fourteen days of you suffering a critical condition

Reasons why you should consider taking out critical illness cover

The main reason why you might consider taking out critical illness cover such as MLC Critical Illness Insurance, is because none of us know what might happen to us in the future, but what many of us can be pretty certain of is that something like a critical illness would leave us and our loved ones far worse off in terms of finances.

Critical illness insurance will help to make sure that you and your family do not have any additional stresses to burden you at a time when you should be focusing on trying to make a full recovery and they will be focusing on providing you with the care that you need to expedite your recovery.

If you are a main income earner and you have people that depend on you to take care of them, such as young kids, it is particularly important that you take out protective cover such as this. Remember, even if you fall critically ill and cannot work or earn money, it will still be necessary to pay for things such as:

• Keeping a roof over your head by paying the mortgage or rent
• Paying the household bills
• Putting food on the table
• Buying clothing for yourself and the kids
• Paying for the kids’ education
• Dealing with any debt payments or other regular financial commitment

So next time that you’re thinking about how to make yourself more financially independent remember to give a thought to you family and loved ones and take steps to make sure you can keep them financially secure.