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Critical illness cover
Support when you need it most, for you and your loved ones.
What is critical illness cover?
Critical illness cover pays out a cash lump sum if you are diagnosed with an illness covered by your policy before it ends.
It could help you and your loved ones meet day-to-day costs and let you focus on your own health and wellbeing.
You might see this referred to as Body Cover. Body Cover is the name we use for our critical illness cover policy. It’s arranged by our partners, Scottish Widows.
Do I need critical illness cover?
Critical illness cover might be right for you if:
- you’d struggle to keep up with day-to-day costs if you were too ill to work for some time
- you don’t have savings or workplace benefits that could cover your costs if you were too ill to work
- you'd like to have a cash lump sum pay-out if you became seriously ill, to let you focus on your health and wellbeing.
What is critical illness cover?
This video will take you through more detail on critical illness cover.
How long should I get cover for?
It might help to think about life’s milestones, like the number of years until:
- your children are 18
- your mortgage is paid off
- you reach state pension age.
How much does it cost?
The amount you pay each month depends on the length of your policy and the size of the cash lump sum that gets paid out when a claim is made. The price might also change based on your age, health and lifestyle.
Get protected by experts
Scottish Widows provide our life insurance and critical illness cover. They're a part of Lloyds Banking Group, like us. Scottish Widows are experts, and they've been protecting what matters most for over 200 years.
Here are a few reasons why they could be the right choice to protect you and your loved ones:
Scottish Widows protection products have no cash-in value at any time. So if the policy ends without a claim, you won't get any money back. If you don't make payments on time, your cover will stop, your policy will end and you'll get nothing back.
What critical illnesses are covered?
The image highlights the illnesses we cover and when you can claim. These headings are only a guide. For full details refer to the terms and conditions.
1. Brain and Neurological System.
- Stroke.
- Brain Tumour.
- Traumatic Head Injury.
- Encephalitis.
- Bacterial Meningitis.
- Dementia.
- Multiple Sclerosis. (MS)
- Motor Neurone Disease. (MND)
- Parkinson's Disease.
- Atypical Parkinsonism/Parkinson Plus Syndrome.
- Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. (CJD)
- Devic's Disease.
2. Heart
- Heart Attack.
- Heart Surgery:
- Coronary artery bypass surgery.
- Heart valve replacement or repair.
- Open heart surgery.
- Aorta graft surgery.
- Inserting a defibrillator after cardiac arrest.
3. Organs
- Kidney failure requiring dialysis
- Transplant :
- Heart.
- Kidney.
- Liver.
- Lung.
- Bone marrow.
- Pancreas.
4. Cancer
- Invasive cancer.
- For some less severe, early stage cancers, we will make an early help payment of £5000.00 if you:
- Undergo surgery for early stage cancer.
- Receive treatment for early stage prostate cancer.
- Develop early stage malignant melanoma.
You can claim for the early help payment more than once for any other unrelated early stage cancer.
If you've got more than one Plan and Protect Policy, we'll only pay one early help payment across all of your policies.
Your full cover continues unchanged and you can go on to make a full claim for any of the illnesses we cover.
5. Limbs
- Paralysis of an arm or leg.
- Amputation or severance of hand or foot.
Critical illness cover policy documents
Find out how critical illness cover can help you and your loved ones. These documents tell you how these policies work and what they cover.
Critical illness cover policy summary
Find out more about what this policy covers and how it works.
Download policy summary. (PDF, 800KB) (opens in a new window.)
Critical illness policy terms & conditions
Check the terms and conditions to make sure this is the right cover for you.
Download terms and conditions (PDF, 871KB) (opens in a new window.)