Scottish Provident has announced that as of the 9th of March 2009, it will be reducing critical illness rates.  Strictly speaking this is a ‘re-price’ and as such not all rates will be lowered.  Scottish Provident says that the majority of rates will be lowered, some may stay the same and a few may increase. 

This follows BUPA and Friends Provident who have also recently dropped their rates.  As a whole, the rates probably haven’t changed that much on average but maybe they have been targeted to a specific age band or occupation class to increase sales. 

 Critical Illness Cover is naturally more expensive than life cover.  The risks of being diagnosed with a critical illness are far higher than dying so this is hardly surprising. Life assurance premiums have been dropping for some time more or less in line with advances in medical science.  Every illness cure leads to a longer life expectancy.  Medical science advances also mean that it is possible to diagnose illnesses and treat them before they become categorized as ‘critical illnesses.’   There may be those who  would argue that they have suffered an illness which nearly met the critical illness definition but they did not qualify for a claim.  This is fair enough but if they have been treated and the illness cured before it reached crtical stage then this is reward enough.