Types of Critical Illness Insurance Plans

By recommending critical illness insurance plans to your clients, you can help them remain competitive for attracting talent and increase your own revenue stream. With health insurance benefits now available to everyone, today’s employers are looking for solutions that keep costs down while still offering benefits that meet unique the needs of their workforce. Critical illness insurance plans provide much needed financial security – allowing your client’s employees to focus on recovery, not finances.

Medical expenses continue to outpace inflation. In fact, 66.5 percent of all bankruptcies are tied to medical issues.¹ And as your clients face greater pressure to curb their health care costs, their employees are responsible for more costs out of their own pockets. Rising medical copays and deductibles, a reduction or loss of income, child care, and transportation to treatment centers are just some of the expenses people may need to deal with when they suffer a critical illness.

Employees are looking to their employers for access to critical illness insurance plans that offer some much needed financial protection. Critical Illness Insurance plans from Guardian complement your client’s medical and disability coverage, and can make a real difference for their employees' security and peace-of-mind.

• Cancer
• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Major organ transplant
• End stage renal failure
• Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG)
• Arteriosclerosis
• Parkinson’s
• Alzheimer's
• MS
• ALS
• Severe burns
• Paralysis

• Coverage for the whole family. Children are covered for a wide range of illnesses and conditions including, Cerebral Palsy, Cleft Lip/Palet, Club Foot, Cystic Fibrosis, Down’s Syndrome, Muscular Dystrophy, Spina Bifida, Type 1 Diabetes, and others. There's no additional cost, and no health questions are required.
   
• Pays for first and second occurrences. Employees are covered for the first and second occurrences of a critical illness. For example if an insured person experiences cancer and later has a relapse, they'll be covered and they'll receive a second occurrence lump-sum payment to use however they wish.
   
• No lifetime maximum. Benefits are payable for multiple conditions.

• Economical group rates. Your clients can offer their employees an opportunity to purchase coverage at rates that are much lower than they can get on their own.
   
• 100% portable. Employees can continue coverage even if their employment has ended.
   
• Coverage is typically guaranteed for employers with 25+ employees. No medical questions. No medical exams.

• They can choose a benefit of up to $50,000 for first occurrence. Guardian Critical Illness Insurance allows your clients to customize the critical illness payment amount their employees receive (up to $50,000) according to their company’s needs. Their employees can select from incremental amounts or specific amounts your client selects.
   
• Hospital coverage benefit covers other illness or injuries. Your clients can select an additional rider that includes coverage that pays up to $500 per day (10 days per year) if the insured employee is in the hospital for any condition other than a listed critical illness.
   
• Wellness benefit payment. A healthy employee is a happy employee. Your clients can help their employees stay healthy and happy by including a wellness benefit payment of $25 - $100 per year when they complete certain routine wellness procedures or screenings, including completion of a smoking-cessation or weight-loss program.
   
• Available caregiver rider. To help cover some of the cost of being a caregiver, clients can include a rider that will pay a $1,000 benefit if an employee’s parent is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
   
• Lump sum automatic increases. Benefit increases 5% each of the first five years of coverage with no premium increase.
   
• Recovery Supplement Benefits. Additional treatments may be needed to assist an insured in recovering from a critical illness. We provide benefits for specific treatments such as physical or occupation therapy or radiation and chemo if it is related to the diagnosis of a critical illness for which we paid a lump sum benefit.
   
• The option to exclude coverage for cancer. It alleviates redundant coverage for employers who already offer a cancer insurance plan.

Communicating the benefits of critical illness insurance programs to your clients and their employees is key to your success. Our dedicated enrollment team provides strategic communications, education and support tools to help your clients every step of the way - from introducing their plan, to helping their employees sign up, to helping their employees with claims. Plus, we provide seamless integration with any existing systems and processes they have in place.

We'll help you and your clients design critical illness insurance plans for their needs.