Trauma cover is a form of life insurance that provides a lump sum benefit if you experience a specified form of medical trauma. This trauma can be a critical illness or a critical injury – and some insurers allow you to select which of these you wish to be insured for.
The basic idea behind trauma cover is to provide the insured person with a lump sum that they can use to offset the financial implications of experiencing a medical trauma. These implications do not need to be specified. They can include things like lost income, medical expenses, rehabilitation expenses, home modification expenses. Importantly, unlike with health insurance, the insured person does not have to verify that they have incurred these expenses. They need only to verify that they have experienced trauma that is covered by their policy. They can then spend their insurance claim as they see fit.
Different policies vary as to the conditions and injuries that they cover. A typical list of covered conditions is as follows:
Heart Conditions
- Angioplasty
- Aortic Surgery
- Cardiomyopathy
- Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery
- Heart Attack
- Heart Valve Surgery
- Primary Pulmonary Hypertension
- Triple Vessel Angioplasty
Blood Disorders
- Aplastic Anaemia
Other Events
- Intensive Care
Neurological Conditions
- Alzheimer’s Disease
- Coma
- Dementia
- Encephalitis and Meningitis
- Meningococcal Disease
- Motor Neurone Disease
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Muscular Dystrophy
- Paralysis
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Stroke
Permanent Conditions
- Blindness
- Loss of Hearing
- Loss of Independent
Existence
- Loss of a Single Limb
- Loss of Speech
Organ Disorders
- Chronic Kidney Failure
- Chronic Liver Failure
- Chronic Lung Failure
- Major Organ Transplant
- Pneumonectomy
- Severe Diabetes
Whether and how much trauma cover you need is an individual decision. If you think about you would experience financial difficulties in the event of a traumatic illness or injury, we urge you to get in touch with us so that we can assist you to establish a suitable policy.
Disclaimer
The tax component of the above analysis was prepared by Dover Financial Advisers, a registered tax (financial) adviser.
