We can’t mend a broken heart, but we can ensure that financial support is there for your clients when something does go wrong. We’re the only critical illness provider in the market currently offering cover for heart failure as a standalone condition under our upgraded critical illness benefit.
Together with cover for heart attack and cardiac arrest, we want to give your clients the best chance of a successful claim.
You might be asking yourself what the differences are and whether these different definitions actually matter in a critical illness product. Let’s take a closer look by first reminding ourselves what these conditions are:
- Heart attack – Blood flow to the heart is interrupted, leading to part of the heart muscle dying due to lack of oxygen
- Cardiac arrest – When the heart literally stops beating
- Heart failure – When the heart stops functioning properly and cannot pump blood effectively.
Heart failure is usually a chronic degeneration or weakening of the heart, whereas a heart attack and cardiac arrest are instant and sudden events.
When looking at heart disease, early intervention can help prevent these conditions from happening in the first place.
With our critical illness cover, several serious heart surgeries are included, such as coronary artery bypass grafts. This type of surgery helps improve blood flow through the heart, hopefully preventing a future heart attack from happening. We also cover some less severe forms of surgery, such as coronary angioplasty, as additional benefits. And importantly, we often don’t require the surgery to have taken place before a payment is made.
For example, if a client needs a heart valve replacement, under our cover they would be eligible to claim from the moment they are placed on the NHS waiting list, rather than having to wait until they have undergone surgery.
With all this in mind, we’re pleased to confirm that as part of the latest enhancements to our critical illness proposition, we’ve revised the definition for cardiomyopathy – a condition that can lead to each of the serious events covered earlier.
There are now three criteria for claim – a definite diagnosis of cardiomyopathy with any of the following:
- Reduced effectiveness of the heart as a pump
- Physical symptoms including fatigue when at rest
- The insertion of a defibrillator as a preventative measure against a possible cardiac arrest
Full details can be found in our Life Insurance+ policy conditions and Critical Illness+ policy conditions documents.
By providing cover for cardiomyopathy sufferers who have had a defibrillator inserted, we would have been able to increase the number of claims paid under the definition.
Hopefully you’ll agree that when it comes to matters of the heart Aviva really does have it covered.
