Critical illness insurance
The critical illness insurance ( roughly translates to " insurance against dreaded diseases ", also: "Severe disease screening " or " critical illness ") is a personal insurance, whose performance at the onset of ( strictly defined ) serious illness of the insured person is paid (e.g., cancer).
Origin / History
The first critical illness insurance in 1983 in South Africa by Marius Barnard, a heart surgeon, developed and spread from there over the Anglo-American world from.
In Germany the insurance form is authorized for distribution only since 1993 and is offered by a few insurance companies.
Insured risks
The German name Heavy - disease screening is somewhat misleading, as this insurance not only diseases in the strict sense ( such as severe forms of cancer, multiple sclerosis, liver disease, lung disease, Parkinson 's disease, arthritis, etc. ) are insured, but also other events such as heart attack, stroke, or severe accidents in the coverage of such policy may be included. The number, type, and insurance-related definition of insured risks varies greatly among insurers.
Rating factors
The amount of the contribution resulting from insurance contracts with biometric risks usual factors (eg age, gender, insurance, time period or pre-existing conditions ). Pre-existing conditions can cause a surcharge, the exclusion or rejection, for example, as with health insurance. In the development of other rating factors ( waiting and waiting periods, dynamics), the insurance, the health insurance and life insurance is similar.
With some dread disease insurance are also building blocks such as death, disability, nursing or occupational disability enclosable.
A possible operational use is the use of a critical illness insurance as so-called " key employee insurance " (also: " Keyman Police" called ). Here, executives or specialists of a company to be insured, to compensate for a potential financial loss in case of failure of the company. In this constellation, the company is insured and the " Keyperson " the insured person. In the power case, the sum insured therefore flows to the company.
Demarcation from other similar insurance
In contrast to a disability insurance or disability insurance no monthly pension is paid, but usually a fixed sum agreed insurance once after diagnosis, regardless of whether the labor of the insured person is restricted or not.
Tax Treatment
A critical illness insurance as part of the pension costs in Germany, where appropriate, tax deductible, provided that the maximum contributions are not already exhausted by eg social security contributions. The payment of the insurance sum is tax-free for private individuals in Germany; in companies ( see above: Keyman insurance) apply such insurance as business income. The contributions can thus be positioned as business expenses.
Benefit / criticism
One advantage of the dread disease insurance is that testing the performance Falls is easier and less time consuming than the disability insurance because different performance requirements are met.
It is often discussed whether the critical illness insurance can be a substitute for a disability insurance. In this discussion, the so-called clerical duties to include, since significantly less disability than is to be found in professions. As these two forms of labor protection while in the power spectrum have overlap, but cover fundamentally different power cases, the individual situation of the person to be insured is always taken into account. The Confederation of the insured and the Consumer Association of Rhineland- Palatinate advise you not to do without a disability insurance benefit of a dread disease insurance, but they must be considered at best as a supplement to disability insurance. In support is said that the dread disease orthopedic and psychological suffering leistungstechnisch hardly detected, but it is often dealing here with the main causes that lead to the loss of manpower.
For persons for whom the completion of a disability insurance but possible is not, or not without exclusion (often the case when in the recent past psychological or psychotherapeutic consultations were used), the critical illness insurance, on the other hand be a valuable alternative as current or past for a final psychological discomfort usually without consequences in the risk assessment are.