What to know about how much critical illness cover costs
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?
Looking at cover with PremierPMI
PremierPMI is a specialist private medical insurance broker and the publisher of The Health Guide. If you want to talk through what this means for your own cover, you can start there.
Or, if you would rather start here, send an enquiry and PremierPMI will contact you.
Common questions
Why can’t an average critical illness premium predict what you will pay?
What should be fixed before comparing critical illness quotes?
What does combining life and critical illness cover do to the price and claims structure?
Sources and methodology
- [1] Association of British Insurers and GRiD, reported by Cover Magazine. “Insurers paid £8bn in protection claims in 2024”. View source(opens in a new tab)Primary source
We cite primary sources wherever possible. Read about our sourcing methodology.
Parvoz Haydarov
Founder, PremierPMI
- Founder of PremierPMI
- Whole-of-market private medical insurance
Parvoz founded PremierPMI as a specialist private medical insurance brokerage. He sets the direction of the firm — insurer relationships, service standards, compliance culture and the editorial bar for everything published under the PremierPMI name — and personally reviews the largest corporate and family cases before they go to market.
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Ilana Eldad
Corporate PMI Specialist, PremierPMI
- ACCA-qualified
- Corporate and SME scheme specialist
Ilana oversees business health insurance schemes for the corporate and SME team, guiding employers from initial quotes through claims and renewal. ACCA-qualified, she applies that financial background to reducing premiums and advising on tax-deductibility, and runs the largest corporate portfolio at PremierPMI.
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