Time for an upgrade?

Have you upgraded your mobile phone in the past two years?

If you have, your choice of upgrade may have been driven by a change in your needs.

Perhaps you opted for a better deal, a different contract, or a handset with new features that weren’t available with your previous model.

When it comes to updating your phone, or other ‘tangible’ goods, this behaviour may feel natural. We all want to feel like we’re getting a good deal.

The question is: why don’t more of us do this with intangible items, like the financial products we pay for every month?

Are you paying for an outdated product?

Take critical illness insurance as an example. If you have a critical illness policy:

• When did you last update it?
• Does it still provide the cover you need?
• Are you missing out on product features that were once considered ‘innovative’, but are now considered ‘standard’?

When your needs change, it makes sense to update things

Life may have changed since you last bought or reviewed your critical illness insurance cover. You may have had children, moved house, or your income may have changed.

This means that even though you have a critical illness policy in place, it might not offer you the level of cover you’d need if the unexpected happened.

Insurance innovation

It’s not just mobile phone companies that compete to offer the most innovative products – insurance companies are constantly updating their products to reflect customers’ changing needs too.

Given that more of us are surviving serious illnesses like cancer(1), and living longer(2), it’s perhaps unsurprising that products like critical illness insurance have changed in recent years.

For instance, many insurers offer greater flexibility or cover a wider range of illnesses. Some have introduced completely new products to allow you to claim for non-critical illnesses and injuries, or even make a partial claim.

Changing your current critical illness cover may mean you are not covered for certain conditions or may lose the benefits from your current policy.

Protect yourself with an up-to-date policy

Critical illness insurance can help you cover mortgage or rent payments, treatment, or any home alterations you may need to make as a result of an unexpected critical illness – so it’s important your cover remains up-to-date.

1. Office for National Statistics: Cancer Survival in England: Patients Diagnosed, 2006–2010 and Followed up to 2011
2. Office for National Statistics: National Life Tables, United Kingdom, 2010-2012

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