Life Insurance with critical illness

The true value of protection really hits home most when it comes to making a claim, that's when you need a provider you can trust. We're here to pay claims and not to try and find reasons to decline them. In fact, we often go out of our way to make sure we're able to pay a claim.

We paid out on 93% of critical illness claims from July 2010 to June 2011. This means you can trust LV= to pay a claim and also to make sure you receive your money as quickly as possible, usually within 24 hours of the claim being accepted.

Our in-house claims team are knowledgeable, efficient and compassionate.

We wish we could pay 100% of claims, but there are some cases where we can't because of non-disclosure or the claim doesn't meet our claim definition.

From July 2010 to June 2011 we were unable to pay 4% of claims due to the claim not meeting our claim definition and 3% of claims due to non-disclosure.

Non-disclosure means that we weren't given accurate information by the customer when they took out the policy. This could have been accidental (and in these cases we try hard to validate the claims), but in some cases, people are dishonest, and deliberately withhold medical and lifestyle information when taking out their policy.

If we didn't operate a responsible policy in paying out claims and apply some exclusions on life insurance, the cost of cover for everyone else would become more expensive.

It's really important when you apply that you disclose any pre-existing conditions, read all the policy literature and answer all questions honestly. If you're not sure of anything, let us know.

Put simply, life insurance can pay out a lump sum for your family when you die, critical illness cover can pay out a lump sum to help you carry on living with a serious condition.

No one likes to think about it, but if you were to die, then it could be difficult for your family to maintain their standard of living without your income.

Likewise, if you were to be diagnosed with a critical illness you could find that you'd need continuous treatment or care for a condition, you might not be able to work anymore (or not as much as before) and your family could struggle financially because of this.

Our life insurance and critical illness cover can pay out a lump sum for your family if you were to die within the term of the policy or earlier if you're diagnosed with one of the critical illness covered by the policy.

The lump sum could help with costs like mortgage payments, child care / education and bills. In the event of a critical illness, it could help make alterations to your home like installing wheelchair access if you can't walk, hire in help or just ease the financial worries of your family.

We normally include a limited amount of critical illness cover for your children in this policy. We provide this at no extra cost and it covers all our critical illnesses except permanent total disability.

While it's never easy to deal with a death or serious illness, it can be even more difficult if there are added financial pressures. Life insurance is a good idea as it can help relieve these pressures and give you and your family peace of mind.

We offer three levels of life and critical illness cover – Level cover, inflation-linked cover and decreasing cover.

Level cover

The amount of cover you choose is fixed when your policy starts, and doesn't change. Level cover doesn't keep up with inflation so will buy less in the future as prices rise.

Inflation-linked cover

The amount of cover you choose and the premium you pay will both go up each year to keep up with inflation.

Decreasing cover

This is designed to cover the reducing amount that you owe on a repayment mortgage. The amount of cover you choose will go down each year as you gradually pay off your mortgage and the repayments get smaller.

There is no minimum or maximum amount of cover, only a minimum premium (currently £5 a month), so you can choose how much cover you need. Prices depend on the amount of cover you choose and also your personal circumstances, like your age and whether you smoke or not. Generally, young people pay less for life insurance and smokers pay higher life insurance premiums than non-smokers.

It's also a good idea to check your policy each year to make sure you have enough cover, as your financial or personal circumstances might change. You can change the amount of your cover or the end date of your policy at any time.