Regardless of your Critical Illness Insurance plan, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to pause payments for a period of time.   Typically an insurance company will give you about 30 days grace period to pay your premiums if you’re late on a payment. After the grace period is up, the policy will lapse, and you would have to re-apply all over again (and risk being declined or modified policy and increased rates).   You can cancel your policy if you would like, but if you decide to get this type of coverage again in the future, you’ll need to re-apply. This means that you run the risk of being declined or getting increased rates.