Life insurance plus Critical Illness

Discover the benefits of Life plus Critical Illness, including who we cover, what support you’ll receive and how to apply.

With Life plus Critical Illness, you’ll get all the benefits of our Life Insurance plus additional protection if you’re diagnosed with a specific critical illness.

You’ll get:

• Full cover for 52 core critical illnesses, including cancer, heart attacks, strokes and multiple sclerosis
• We’ll make a part payment for 44 additional illnesses, including less advanced cancers
• Advance payments are available ahead of surgery for 11 surgical procedures
• We’ll automatically cover your children from 30 days old up to 18, or 22 if in full time education
• We also cover children for an additional six child specific illnesses from birth
• We’ll make a part payment if your child is diagnosed with a terminal illness which is not covered as a critical illness

See our Critical Illness Definitions Guide for full details of the illnesses we cover.

Just so you’re aware, your plan will only end when we make a full claim payment. If we make an additional illness or children’s claim payment, your plan will continue, so you’ll be covered for any further claims.

You can only make one claim per person for each specific condition.

We can cover individuals or couples:

• Aged between 18 and 65 on application

• Up to the age of 70

• Who are normally resident in the UK

• For between 3 and 40 years

• For up to £750,000

• Children’s cover is included free with every policy

Like Life Insurance, you can choose how your policy works:

Level cover – the amount you pay and the amount of cover stay the same from the start to the end of your policy.

Increasing cover – you can increase your amount of cover each year to help protect it against inflation. Your payments will increase at a higher level than the cover because the cost of providing it gets more expensive with age.

Decreasing cover – your payments stay the same, but have a lower start point because the amount of cover goes down from the start to the end of your policy.

Bereavement Counselling

Our bereavement counsellors provide 24/7 emotional support to help you cope with the loss of any friends, family or loved ones. We’ll include up to four face-to-face or structured phone sessions per issue, every year.

Probate Helpline

Our probate experts will help with issues relating to family disputes, validity of wills, power of attorney and obtaining probate.

Personal Nurse Service

For critical illness claims, we’ll provide you and your family practical and emotional support over the phone – for as long as you need it.

Second Medical Opinion

Your Personal Nurse Adviser can help you access over 20,000 UK consultants for a second opinion on your diagnosis and treatment plan. This could help you understand your condition and make informed choices about your care options. 

Other benefits

Advance payments for funeral costs

We’ll make an advance payment of up to £10,000 for funeral costs if there’s a delay in making a full life insurance claim payment.

The Canada Life App

Enjoy over 1000 savings and discounts with our rewards app – from discounted cinema tickets to family days out.

Our Life plus Critical Illness policies can be written under a discretionary split trust or a bare gift trust.

If you place your policy in a trust, in the event of a life claim payment, we can can pay this directly to your beneficiaries rather than to your legal estate. This means they won’t need to pay inheritance tax on it.

We recommend you speak to a professional adviser before placing your policy into trust.