You wake up early in the morning after a busy weekend and your throat feels scratchy. You move on with your day but it just gets worse. Your nose starts to get stuffed up and your stomach doesn’t feel so good. You make it through the day, but when you get home all you want to do is lie down on the couch and watch some Netflix with your favourite hot soup and call it a day.  Unfortunately, you can’t. Your house needs cleaning, you don’t have anything to eat at home, and you don’t have enough cash to afford cold medicine so you’ll probably be sick until Thursday.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be given an extra $500 for the week? Go ahead! Treat yourself. Buy the healthiest soup money can buy, hire someone to clean your house, and go clean out the pharmacy of every product and trick to help you get better. Being sick shouldn’t be so stressful that you can’t get better. How do you feel now? Relieved? No longer overwhelmed? Remember this feeling. This is what critical illness (CI) insurance can do for you. A cold or stomach flu is nothing in comparison to the overwhelming emotional stress and physical strain of experiencing a Heart Attack or being told you have Cancer.

The likelihood of suffering from a critical illness is as high as 1 in 3 according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation as referenced by PPI Solutions in their article, ‘A critical step towards fighting critical illness’. With the odds so high, why wouldn’t you protect yourself and your family against as many of the stresses of contracting a critical illness as possible? A lump sum benefit upon diagnosis, and subsequent survival of a critical illness, can give you the freedom to pay for any treatments or assistance if not covered by healthcare. Take some time off work, hire some help, and focus on yourself until you are better.

Below is an excellent Infographic from a company that services our neighbors to the south: Criticalillnessplanning.com. LifePlan Financial Group and it's many Associated Advisors are ready and able to provide these very same services and information to Canadians like yourself to help you make an informed decision on what plan is right for you and your loved ones.

Simon Avery from Globe and Mail gives 3 tips to decrease cost of CI insurance if you can’t afford a contract with all of the bells and whistles.

1)      Affordable Coverage Amounts. While a $100,000 policy may be unaffordable, even $25,000 can make a huge difference in the event of a critical illness. Talk to an advisor to determine what coverage amount would best suit your needs.

2)      Tackle the Big Three: Heart Attack, Cancer, and Stroke. Full CI products will cover between 28-32 illnesses, but 80% of claims will be from a heart attack, cancer, or stroke. Consider what you can afford, and if you need to, opt for coverage with fewer illnesses.

3)      Buy Now. Insurance policies only get more expensive as you grow older. The price can go up by as much as 8% between some years so buy early and get a good deal.

Lifeplan Financial is a locally owned Managing General Agency (MGA) in Victoria and we work hard to give advisors the tools they need to succeed across all of British Columbia.  We give our advisors the independence they need with the support they deserve. “Because Your Success… is Our Success.”