Breast cancer: Are you covered?

Serious diseases, such as cancer and especially breast cancer, usually strike without warning. Breast cancer is also not partial to race, gender or age and although this dread disease is not a death sentence, it may have a devastating effect on your lifestyle.

Apart from the physical and emotional trauma it can cause, it can also put financial pressure on your ability to continue with the lifestyle to which you are accustomed.

Petrie Marx, product actuary at Sanlam says clients may have the best medical aid and hospital cover, but the need for dread disease cover or a critical illness benefit still remains.

In the case of breast cancer you may not necessarily be medically unable to continue working, and therefore you may not be able to claim disability cover. And it is exactly at times such as these that you will need extra cash – and dread disease cover to generate that cash.

“Dread disease cover is a way of providing for the inability to obtain insurance in the future,” explains Marx.

But consumers need advice now, more than ever, on which products to choose and which benefits are appropriate, given their personal circumstances.

Marx says that when considering dread disease cover, you would typically look at a product that also includes protection against other dread diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, loss of limb function, etc.

It is also important for consumers to acquaint themselves with the different approaches – traditional vs. tiered – that different service providers follow when it comes to pay-out.

Marx explains that the traditional approach to covering dread diseases is where a full pay-out is typically made based on a medical diagnosis, whereas a tiered payment is not only based on the event, but also on the outcome of or the severity of the disease.

For example, if cancer, particularly breast cancer, is your concern, be wary of a product that pays out on a sliding scale of between 25% and 100%, based on the staging of cancer, he cautions.

Marx suggests a dread disease product that pays in full on diagnosis of stage one cancer. This will provide ideal financial protection against the threat of breast cancer.

Marx says that regardless of the severity level, most dread diseases will leave you uninsurable in future and will have a significant impact on your lifestyle. “At Sanlam, we believe that the claim amount should generally settle 100% of the cover amount, particularly for the most common, serious diseases that are likely to affect you.”