Many critical illness policies are taken out in combination with life insurance.
This can work in a couple of ways, either as ‘combined’ or ‘additional’ cover. They work differently in terms of how they pay out:
Combined cover will only pay out once, either if you’re diagnosed with a critical illness or if you die. This means that if you’re unlucky enough to get a critical illness that pays out and then you pass away after that, the policy would only pay out once.
Additional cover will pay out both if you’re diagnosed with a critical illness and if you die while the policy is still active. Because it has the potential to pay out more than once, these policies tend to be more expensive than combined cover.