Permanent Health Insurance

The term 'permanent health insurance' is not widely known to the general public. Permanent health insurance is a type of long term income protection policy. Income protection or permanent health insurance provides protection against accident or sickness not unemployment.

Permanent health insurance is priced primarily on the occupation you perform. If your job is considered to be of high risk, for example a roofer then premiums and terms tend to be more costly. When considering whether permanent health insurance should form part of your protection portfolio it is important to consider if your employer offers a similar form of cover as part of your employment package. Group income protection cover is often provided by your employer and is designed to start when your sick pay arrangements stop. If you are not lucky enough to be provided with group permanent health insurance, you should consider what the effects of an accident or ill health may have on your lifestyle.

Permanent health insurance applications are medically underwritten prior to acceptance by the insurer. Some of the strictest criteria are applied during this process. This means that if your current or previous medical status is impaired, cover may be costly, exclusions may be applied and in some cases cover will be refused altogether. Permanent health insurance cover is usually based on the ability to perform one's 'own occupation', this is by far and away the preferred basis on which cover should taken. This means that if the permanent health insurance policyholder is unable to perform his or hers own exact occupation due to incapacity, then a claim is payable until either the individual is well enough to return to work, the policyholder dies or the policy attains termination age, usually retirement.