Does Life Insurance Cover Cancer? 
Life insurance pays a death benefit to the beneficiary no matter what the cause of death is - as long as the policy is beyond the contestability period . So yes life insurance will `` cover '' death from cancer . Many life insurance companies offer a critical illness rider that will pay out up to 90 % of the death benefit to the insured in the case of a critical or chronic illness where the insured is not expected to live beyond a year or two . In that case terminal cancer would be `` covered '' as well . 