​The present age medical technology provides treatments for most of the illnesses found around the world. Following which, the normal life expectancy has also improved. Nevertheless, if such medical treatments can save one's life, at the same time they can also put someone in a severe financial crisis. Thus, comes into play a critical illness insurance policy.

Diseases included in the category of critical illness insurance policy are life threatening in nature. Reliance General Insurance offers critical illness covers for following conditions - Cancer, Major Organ Transplant, Sclerosis, Third Degree Burns, Aorta Graft Surgery, Heart Valve Replacement, Coma (persisting more than 30 days), Quadriplegia (persisting more than 60 days post diagnosis without any significant recovery), Total Blindness, End stage Renal Diseases (not involving transplant).
Like life insurance or health insurance, the cost of a critical illness policy too depends on many factors like age, gender, family's health history, personal habits, your health background.

How does a Critical Illness Insurance policy works?
Once the insured is diagnosed with critical illness, he/she would need to intimate his/her insurance provider about the same. On receiving this intimation, the insurance company provides him/her with a lumpsum benefit towards his/her Critical Illnesses insurance policy with the company.

Some common highlights of such policies are:

• The insured generally needs to inform the company within 30 days of first diagnosis of the concerned medical illness
• There might be some critical illness insurance policies which may not cover diseases during the first 90 days
• If there is a loss of income as a result of the diagnosed disease, you might find some policies covering such events
• Generally pre-existing diseases are not covered under such policies. However, if you have had minimum two years of continuous coverage, then your insurance provider may cover you against your pre-existing conditions.

Your health insurance policy comes with many sub-limits. As a result, sometimes it may fail to offer complete coverage towards medical expenses you incur. In such a situation, a lumpsum amount offers lets you to spend the money as per your requirement. Thus, the significance of a critical illness insurance policy cannot be ignored. Buying a critical illness insurance becomes important because while saving your money at the crucial time, it also takes care of best possible medical treatment for you.