If you are paying for both Medical Cover and Dread Disease Cover… you may ask yourself why?

The cost of living keeps rising and in the year ahead we can expect more increases that will put pressure on our hard-earned and diligently saved resources. This doesn’t have to be bad news – it can encourage us to improve and tailor our financial planning to meet the changes and test our flexibility! That means going back to your costs and determining what is necessary and what is not.

When it comes to your financial planning portfolio – you might see that you have Medical Aid and you have Dread Disease cover (also known as critical illness insurance) and feel like having the two is an over-spend.

The reality is: it’s not. Because they are not the same type of product.

In short – you can loosely view it like this: medical plans cover the direct medical costs of your illness (hospital, doctors and treatments) whilst dread disease/severe illness cover assists with everything outside of the traditional medical sphere (extra medications that aren’t covered, extra specialist visits, alternate dietary needs, medical equipment, car modifications to cars, time off work etc).

In short – they are complementary products.

Another quick point to consider is that the younger you are when you take on cover like this, the lower your premiums are. Age of commencement and time covered play a role when your premiums are calculated. General practice advises to start with a small amount of cover and build it up with time, this way it allows you to work towards the levels of cover you would prefer. But everyone is unique, so it’s best for us to chat about it first!