Home / Critical illness cover / - Cancer
Background information
1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetime.
1 in 4 people will die from cancer.
Out of more than 200 different types of cancer, 4 - lung, breast, colorectal and prostate - account for over half of all new cases.
(Non-melanoma skin cancer is excluded from these figures.)
(Cancer Research UK , 2002)
A quarter of a million people in the UK will contract cancer this year.
More than half the people who contract cancer of the breast, cervix, larynx, testis, uterus, or malignant melanoma, will survive for a minimum of 5 years.
Survival rates for many other cancers are also improving.
( Munich Re, 2002)
It is estimated that 1 woman in 9 will develop breast cancer at some point in her life.
In 1997 38,000 women were newly diagnosed with breast cancer - and new cases are steadily increasing year on year.
On average 60% of women diagnosed with breast cancer will still be alive 5 years later.
(Breast Cancer Campaign, 2002)
In 2000, over 150,000 people died from cancer. That's one person every 3 and a half minutes.
In 2000, more men and women died from lung cancer than any other type of cancer - 20,600 men and 13,000 women. That's almost 100 deaths every day.
(Office for National Statistics, 2001)
Definition
Any malignant tumour characterised by the uncontrolled growth and spread of malignant cells and invasion of tissue. The term cancer includes leukaemia and Hodgkin’s disease but the following are excluded:
- all tumours which are histologically described as pre-malignant, as non-invasive or as cancer in situ;
- all tumours of the prostate unless histologically classified as having a Gleason score greater than six or having progressed to at least TNM classification T2N0M0;
- any skin cancer other than invasive malignant melanoma.
What does this mean?
Cancer is a malignant tumour or a malignancy. It causes uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells which invade, damage and destroy surrounding bodily tissue. These cells can then spread and cause damage to other parts of the body.
Non-invasive or cancer in situ is a very early stage cancer which has not invaded surrounding tissue and has not spread throughout the body. Treatment is relatively easy and successful. Cancers in situ are therefore not covered.
In line with Government policy, screening for prostate cancer will become widely available to men in the not too distant future. The key purpose of this screening is to detect prostate tumours at a much earlier stage than at present – before they cause any noticeable symptoms and when the illness can be more easily treated and cured. Accordingly, in line with the new ABI cancer definition, cover the less advanced prostate cancers is usually excluded.
More advanced and more aggressive cases (typically those that are currently detected) will continue to be covered. Most skin cancers are also easy to treat and are also excluded. However malignant melanoma is a very serious form of skin cancer which can very quickly spread throughout the body. This form of skin cancer is therefore included.
13 August 2007 17:12:27
Recent changes in the critical illness insurance industry should prevent the unfortunate situation of consumers such as Jilly Thompson, it is hoped.
The Financial Mail recently reported that Ms Thompson from Cheshire was forced to undergo a mastectomy in 2004, after cancerous cells were discovered in her right breast.
However, the 60-year-old, who first acquired critical illness cover in 1997, had her claim rejected, when her insurer told her that her condition - 'ductal carcinoma in situ' - was not life-threatening.
Though the condition is indeed treatable if detected early enough, the case highlights the confusion felt by some consumers over the extent of their critical illness protection.
Ms Thompson told the paper: "If I had not had my breast removed my cancer would have spread and then I would have qualified for my claim. But I may well have risked my life."
The Association of British Insurers recently introduced new critical illness definitions, so as to provide greater clarity to consumers and to standardize protection levels across the industry.
10 July 2008 18:21:55
Treatment-resistant superbugs could reduce Britain to a pre-antibiotic era where doctors were helpless to protect the public against common infections that ended up killing thousands.
That is the conclusion of a new study by the UK's science academy, the Royal Society. This would have an effect on hospital patient's life insurance policies.
Professor David Read, vice president of the academy, expressed concern that the battle against superbugs had been focused too heavily on keeping hospitals clean.
He explained that not enough attention had been paid to tackling the bugs themselves, saying: "This is important, but it will not deal with the fact that MRSA and other infections are increasingly resistant to the medicines we have come to rely on to treat them."
Professor Read went on: "We must make sure that the investment is in place to deliver the next generation of antibiotics to tackle future outbreaks of infection."
According to the report, mankind is losing the battle against once-treatable bacteria and this is born out by the statistics.
MRSA - or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - contributes to the death of around 5,000 people each year in the UK.
Hospital superbugs will have an effect on UK life insurance.
30 July 2008 17:22:20
Cases of acute sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have significantly increased in the last ten years, according to latest research.
Figures have revealed that there were 22,906 cases of acute STDs in 2007, which is a rise of seven per cent on the previous year.
The number of men infected every year has increased 102 per cent to 12,712, with the total for women rising to 10,194.
The Scottish Conservative health spokesperson Mary Scanlon said that the figures showed a "shocking and dramatic increase".
This shocking data may encourage more people to take out life insurance in order to cover themselves and their families in the worst case scenario.
Research shows that the number of syphilis cases has risen in the last ten years from eight in 1998 to 249 last year.
Chlamydia infections increased the most from 1,770 in 1996 to 9,461 last year, with HIV cases almost trebling in the same period.
This follows news that sex and relationships education could begin at an earlier age in primary schools in order to tackle the numbers of STDs and teenage pregnancies in the UK.
