Severe Illness Cover

Given the plethora of risk products available you may be wondering why there is a need for yet more cover. The answer is simple... more and more people are being affected by life changing events such as heart attacks, cancer and strokes. There is no underestimating the dramatic impact such an illness can have on you and your lifestyle.

Why GREENLIGHT Severe Illness cover?

What truly sets GREENLIGHT apart when it comes to illness cover is that they pay 100% of cover for all severities of the four major illnesses - heart attack, cancer, stroke and coronary artery bypass graft. These four illnesses account for 93% of all GREENLIGHT's illness claims during 2008.

Many popular illness products have varying cover according to the severity of the illness suffered. So you could find with one of these products that your heart attack has been classified “mild” and be paid 50% of your cover amount, for example. GREENLIGHT celebrates the standardised industry definitions for the four “core” diseases: heart attack, cancer, stroke and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). Objectively measured against industry-standard definitions, we pay 100% for all four severity levels from mild to severe, as you can see in the grid below.

Illnesses and severity levels in the table are as per the Standardised Critical Illness Definitions Project (SCIDEP) of the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA). Old Mutual has implemented this in their benefits, and is the first insurer to disclose the grid on quotes.

Additionally, there are more than 50 other illnesses covered.  HIV-AIDs is one of them.

GREENLIGHT firmly believes that even at “mild” severity levels, an illness can have a huge impact on your lifestyle, so their illness cover does not differentiate between “mild” and more severe cancers, for example. Statistics of the insured populations tell us that 50% of heart attacks are mild or minor, 40% of strokes result in mild damage and 60% of cancers are stage 1. We recognise that customers need 100% of their cover to pay out if they suffer from one of the severe illnesses, no matter how mildly.  Which makes sense, because some people get R100,000 cover and others get R500,000 cover.  Based on that, you can't have differentiations based on severity payouts.  So I'm personally, very glad that Old Mutual has done this.

Features and Benefits

• You know you'll be paid, what you expect - no excuses. You'll receive 100% of your cover amount, for all of the severe illnesses covered.
• Simple, understandable language with a minimum of medical jargon.
• You can access cover for a very comprehensive range of severe illnesses, including blindness and trauma. The LifeQuality event will cover you if you need help with or can't do day-to-day chores such as washing and dressing yourself, no matter the medical reason.
• Fair treatment - If one of the four major illnesses must be excluded from your cover after assessing you medically, we will at least reduce your premium to fairly reflect your reduced cover.
• Children can be covered too.