September 6th, 2011 | Author: Mitch Reynolds

Protect Your Kids and Family with Critical Illness Insurance for Children

Major childhood illness plus normal coverage with critical illness insurance for children

If finances were not an object, would you protect your kids with critical illness insurance for children? Many parents will invest into their children’s future through saving for education and setting aside money for getting a good start in life. That is all great, but all those plans might go by the wayside if your child is diagnosed with a major, life altering critical illness.

If you have never looked at critical illness insurance for children before, this article will give you the basic information you need to decide if this type of plan provides valuable benefits for both your children AND your family.

Why buy critical illness insurance for children?

Your child’s dreams are your dreams too. Doing everything you can to make those dreams come true is what parents do to help their children in life. What if those dreams had to be sidelined due to a life altering critical illness? As a parent, you can plan for managing the unfortunate circumstances in life, as well as for the dreams. Risk protection plans like life insurance and critical illness insurance are solid financial planning strategies to keep your children’s dreams on track and allow your family to keep moving forward, even in the face of a childhood critical illness.

The financial impact of a critical illness for one of your children can have serious implications. Maybe education savings for one or all your children gets spent to seek medical treatment. You might take out a second mortgage to raise money for extended time off work. You might suffer from a stress related illness due to your child’s diagnosis and claim disability insurance, and be on a reduced income. With critical illness insurance for children, you could use the tax free money for the following:

Take extended time off work to be with your child and family
Seek the best medical care available to help your child beat their critical illness
Get help you need to deal with the emotional impact of such a diagnosis
Minimize the financial and emotional impact of dealing with a childhood critical illness

How critical illness insurance for children works

Along with the major covered critical illnesses, there are additional juvenile critical illnesses that provide coverage until age of 24. There are two main insurance companies in Canada that offer competitive critical illness insurance for children: Desjardins Financial Security and Sun Life Financial.

Desjardins Critical Illness Insurance for Children

The Desjardins Financial Security critical illness insurance for children policy, called Harmony New Generation, offers some very unique features. It has the most childhood onset illnesses of all competitors plus unique infectious disease coverages that are only covered by Desjardins. There is also a permanent life insurance policy built into the plan in case your child was to pass away – there would be money to help you through the grieving process.

Here are the 6 childhood onset critical illnesses:

Autism
Cystic Fibrosis
Cerebral Palsy
Rett syndrome
Muscular Dystrophy
Type 1 Diabetes (Juvenile Diabetes)

Desjardins also has 4 unique infectious disease coverages that no other company offers:

West Nile virus
Lyme Disease (Borrelia burgdoferi)
E.Coli infection
Necrotizing Fasciitis (flesh eating disease)

The Desjardins Harmony New Generation policy also has all the normal critical illnesses (e.g. cancer, heart attack, stroke, bypass surgery, MS, etc.) covered during childhood and throughout life. There is also a return of premium rider you could add so that if your child remains healthy you could get all or a portion of the invested premiums returned to you, tax free.

The Desjardins childhood critical illness insurance plan comes with either a lifetime premium plan or a quick 20 year payment plan. You can buy a minimum of $25,000 of coverage and a maximum of $250,000 for your children. Your child must be 30 days old to purchase the policy and no older than 17. If you chose you can also add additional life insurance for your child to their critical illness policy from Desjardins.

Sun Life Financial critical illness insurance for children

The Sun Life Financial critical illness insurance policy for children also offers childhood onset illness. These are similar:

Type 1 diabetes (juvenile diabetes)
Cystic Fibrosis
Congenital Heart Disease
Cerebral Palsy
Muscular Dystrophy

The Sun Life critical illness insurance plan can be purchased from age 2 to 19 for children. You can buy between $50,000 and $250,000 of critical illness insurance coverage for your children. The SunSpectrum critical illness insurance plan also has an automatic increase of $25,000 at ages 25, 30 and 35. This means if you purchased a $75,000 plan for your kids when they were young (maximum coverage for the SunSpectrum product, unlike the Sun Life Critical Illness Insurance), they could double the coverage to $150,000 of critical illness insurance protection without having to re-qualify medically for the increases. For the SunSpectrum plan, premiums remain level throughout the life of the policy except for the $25,000 increases, which would add additional level cost for life (the $25,000 automatic increases can be declined by the policy owner if they don’t need the extra critical illness insurance). The Sun Life Critical Illness Insurance plan could be purchased as a Term 10, Term to 75 or Term 100 permanent critical illness policy.

Price Comparison between Desjardins and Sun Life

If we were to look at $75,000 of critical illness insurance for a child age 2, the cost for a Sun Life Critical Illness Plan Term 100 would be about $35 per month. The Desjardins Harmony New Generation policy would cost $46.50 for the same $75,000 coverage also with $75,000 of life insurance and the additional illnesses and infectious disease coverage.

Both plans have their pros and cons. The most attractive feature of the SunSpectrum plan is the automatic increases of benefit when your child is an adult and probably needs more critical illness coverage. The Harmony New Generation plan has additional illnesses and infectious disease coverages and the ability to guarantee paying it off in 20 years if you chose.

Life Guard Insurance can help you find critical illness insurance for children of yours

At Life Guard Insurance we have experienced life insurance agents across Canada who know how to design a critical illness insurance plan for your children. Feel free contact Life Guard Insurance to be put in contact with a qualified life insurance broker to help you.

The article was written by Mitch Reynolds+. If you found this article interesting or it made you think, please feel free to share your comments below. Liking us on Facebook, giving us a +1 on Google or Tweeting this article about critical illness insurance for children would also be very much appreciated.