Insurers in the Canadian market continue to provide more and more cover for many critical illness conditions. By doing this, they may be able to then make their presence felt among their competitors in the insurance market. Individual critical illness insurance covered around ten conditions. Besides, nowadays most policies may provide cover for around 20 critical illness conditions.
Moreover, the group market may have adopted a different tactic. Conversely to individual critical illness cover, they provided cover for less critical illnesses. They believed that fewer critical illness conditions implied fewer exclusions, which may be true at a certain extent. On the other hand, creditor critical illness insurance covered only three core critical illnesses: cancer, stroke and heart attack. As a result, the product may have been easily explained and presented to potential customers. Also, the underwriting procedure may have become simple as well as the risk of exclusions may have also decreased. However, there may be certain facets to remember about critical illness insurance in Canada as compared to more ripened markets such as UK and South Africa. First of all, the premium rates for individual critical illness products in Canada may be guaranteed throughout the whole policy. As a matter of fact, the policy may be non cancelable. This may then stand as a solid advantage for the insured. But from a reinsurer’s point of view this type of critical illness policy might become expensive as high levels of premiums might have to be paid.
Next, similar as that of UK, at an initial stage in Canada, the critical illness definitions might not have been fixed.
Therefore, the actual critical illness definitions may have varied from one insurer to the other. High competition in the market may have pushed insurers towards increasing their benefits and simplifying or lessening their definitions. But this may mean trouble at the moment a critical illness claim is made. Thus when analysing the critical illness claim, the claims department may encounter problems understanding the definitions clearly. At this moment the claim could be rejected and hence lead to customer disapproval as from their point of view the critical illness policy had been completely in rule. Furthermore, insurers may have also started to take notice that critical illness cover may be a living benefit. Consequently, policyholders may find important that additional benefits be offered at the time of claim.
Therefore, insurers may be considering to providing services on top of paying out successfully as critical illness claim.
These value added services may include as per Munich Re: independent physician/specialist evaluation; referral to the most appropriate specialist given the claimant’s condition; coordination of treatment in the Canadian healthcare system and finally if the claimant chooses to be treated outside Canada, the insurer may help with travel arrangements, accommodation and payment guarantees. These services may then be managed by another company that is specialised in the medical field. It may be too early to have an idea about how future critical illness consumers may feel to get these services on top of critical illness benefits. Critical illness insurance in Canada may be expanding rapidly as awareness among people may be increasing. Not to forget, a lot of hard work may also be carried out by insurers to deliver a critical illness product of quality. It remains to be seen how much time the Canadian market takes to reach the same level of maturity as in UK and South Africa.
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