Critical illness
How much does critical illness cover cost in the UK?
The short answer
There is no single honest figure: premiums depend on your age, health, smoking status, the sum assured, the term length and whether premiums are guaranteed or reviewable. Any “average premium” without a named source and date cannot predict your quote. Fix a specification, then compare written like-for-like quotes.
Written by Parvoz Haydarov. Reviewed by Ilana Eldad.
Published . Last reviewed . Next review due .
What to know about how much critical illness cover costs
- No published average premium can predict an individual quote because each hides different ages and health profiles. Read more
- Fixing the specification first — sum assured, term, premium type — makes written quotes genuinely comparable. Read more
- Age and smoking status are among the largest factors, since diagnosis risk rises steeply with age. Read more
- Combined life and critical illness policies cost less than two separate plans but usually pay out once only. Read more
Thinking about how much critical illness cover costs
What works well
- A fixed specification makes quotes genuinely comparable.
- Guaranteed premiums remove future repricing risk.
- Younger applicants lock in the lowest rates of their lives.
What to watch
- Averages without sources cannot predict an individual quote.
- A cheaper quote usually means narrower definitions somewhere specific.
- Reviewable premiums can rise sharply at review dates.
Why the honest answer is a method, not a number
Every circulated “average premium” hides a different mix of ages, smoking statuses and cover amounts, so it cannot predict your quote — and critical illness pricing is more sensitive to health history than life insurance pricing because the claim event is more common. The disciplined approach is to fix the specification first — sum assured, term, guaranteed premiums, standalone or combined with life cover — then collect written quotes against that identical specification and compare them line by line. What the structure tells you without any figures: premiums rise steeply with age because diagnosis risk does; smoking status is one of the largest single rating factors; and combined life-and-critical-illness policies cost less than two separate standalone plans but usually pay out once only. No insurer or trade body publishes a comparable market-wide table of critical illness premiums by age band, so none is quoted here.
Write down your exact specification, request quotes against it in writing, and keep each insurer’s document with its date — a quote without a date is not comparable. Whatever the specifics of how much critical illness cover costs, the discipline that protects you is always the same: get the insurer’s position in writing, keep the documents with the policy, and make sure the people who would help you claim know the policy exists and where the paperwork lives.
What moves the price
An insurer prices critical illness cover when you apply, working from how old you are, what you disclose about your health and habits (whether you smoke weighs heavily), the sum assured you choose, how many years the policy runs and how the premium is structured. A guaranteed premium cannot change during the policy; a reviewable one can be raised at each review point, so the cheapest opening price may not stay cheapest. Online averages blend people of every age, health record and cover level, which is why they say little about what you would pay. No insurer or trade body publishes a comparable market-wide average critical illness premium, so none is quoted here.
Beyond the policy design, the way an insurer underwrites your health is the other big variable, and insurers do not all read a medical record the same way. That is why the fair test is several written quotes built on one identical set of choices: the same lump sum, the same term and the same premium type. Pay-out statistics matter when weighing price against reliability: ABI and GRiD data shows protection insurers paid a record £8 billion in 2024, with 97.9 per cent of individual claims paid. [1]
| Measure | Figure | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Total protection pay-outs, 2024 | £8 billion | Group and individual life, critical illness and income protection claims combined — a record year |
| Individual claims paid, 2024 | 97.9% | The share of individual protection claims insurers paid |
| Critical illness pay-outs, 2024 | £1.3 billion | The total paid on critical illness claims |
| Average critical illness claim, 2024 | £67,600 | The typical lump-sum pay-out on an individual critical illness policy |
| Most common CI claim cause, 2024 | Cancer — 62% of claims | The diagnosis behind the majority of critical illness claims |
| 2023 | £7.34 billion |
|---|---|
| 2024 | £8 billion |
| 2025 | £7.84 billion |
How to compare two quotes
- Fix the cover first: the amount, the term and whether premiums are guaranteed or reviewable.
- Ask for each quote in writing, with its date.
- Put the quotes side by side and mark every difference in terms before you look at price.
- Ask whether any exclusion or price increase was added because of your health answers.
Related guides
- What critical illness cover is
- Your disclosure rights: critical illness cover and pre-existing conditions
- If a claim goes wrong: do critical illness policies pay out?
Common questions
- Why can’t an average critical illness premium predict what you will pay?
- An average premium quoted online blends together people of very different ages, smoking statuses, health histories and cover amounts, so it describes no one individual in particular. Critical illness pricing is especially sensitive to health history, because a serious diagnosis is more common than death at any given age, which widens the gap between the cheapest and most expensive quotes for the same cover. Without a named source and a date behind a figure, there is no way to judge whether it applies to you, so treat it as unusable for planning.
- What should be fixed before comparing critical illness quotes?
- Before requesting quotes, fix the sum assured, the length of the term, whether premiums are guaranteed or reviewable, and whether the cover is standalone or combined with life insurance. With that specification set, written quotes become genuinely comparable, because any difference in price reflects each insurer’s own assessment of your health and lifestyle rather than a difference in what is being quoted for. Two insurers can view an identical medical history differently, so more than one written quote against the same specification is the reliable way to compare.
- What does combining life and critical illness cover do to the price and claims structure?
- Combining life insurance and critical illness cover in one policy generally costs less than buying two separate standalone plans for the same amounts, because the insurer is pricing one set of risks rather than two. The trade-off sits in how claims work: on most combined policies, the sum assured is paid once, on whichever event happens first, and the policy then ends — a critical illness pay-out usually also ends the life cover attached to it. Check this claims structure in the wording before deciding.
Sources
- Association of British Insurers and GRiD, reported by Cover Magazine. Insurers paid £8bn in protection claims in 2024. Accessed 15 September 2026 (primary source)