Critical Illness Insurance was developed by Dr. Marius Barnard (the brother of Christian Barnard, the doctor who performed the first successful open heart transplant surgery) in South Africa in 1983. Dr. Barnard saw a need for insurance that paid a "living benefit" to those who survived a major illness to offset lost income and pay additional expenses.

It is inspiring to hear him tell stories of delivering a Critical Illness benefit check to the wife of a farmer who had a heart attack (They would have lost their farm without the Critical Illness benefit payment), or to a young, single mother who had breast cancer (And couldn't afford the medical treatment and the after-treatment expenses without the benefits paid from her critical illness policy).

While Critical Illness Insurance was introduced in Canada five years ago which is relatively early for generating statistics. However, it has an established track record in South Africa, United Kingdom, Australia and Japan. Because of its broad appeal, Critical Illness Insurance is very successful wherever it has been introduced: In 1987 Critical Illness plans were successfully launched in England.

They recently introduced a Critical Illness policy in Japan that only covers heart attack, stroke, and cancer. Over 500,000 policies were sold in just 10 months and there were over 6 million policies sold by the end of its fourth year!

Whereas life insurance has been readily available for literally hundreds of years, critical illness insurance is a relatively recent development.

There are a wide range of Canadian insurance companies who offer a critical illness policy. The terms and conditions will vary from company to company, but the following ailments are insurable by virtually all insurers (Base Coverage)

Alzheimer's Disease, Aortic Surgery, Aplastic Anaemia, Bacterial Meningitis, Benign Brain Tumour, Blindness, Coma, Coronary Artery Bypass, Deafness, Heart Attack, Heart Valve Replacement, Kidney Failure, Life-Threatening Cancer, Loss of Independent Existence, Loss of Limbs, Loss of Speech, Major Organ Transplant, Motor Neuron Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Occupational HIV Infection, Paralysis, Parkinson's Disease, Severe Burns, and