Vitality critical illness cover review 2026

Serious Illness Cover pays a lump sum if you’re diagnosed with an illness or condition Vitality covers and it meets Vitality’s definition of that condition. Vitality gives cancer, stroke and heart attack as examples. It says the cover may not pay for minor illnesses or injuries, and gives influenza, broken bones, sprains and muscle injuries as examples of conditions it doesn’t cover.

Rather than one full payment, each claim pays a percentage of your cover based on how severe the condition is, on a scale from A to G: severity A pays 100%, B 75%, C 50%, D 25%, E 15%, F 10% and G 5%. 1X covers severity levels A to D, 2X A to E and 3X A to G.

Vitality says the plan follows the ABI Guide to Minimum Standards for Critical Illness Cover (2018) and includes all its model definitions, paying 25% to 100% for them depending on severity. Cancer, for example, is included at a minimum of 25%, and higher-staged tumours can qualify for a larger payment.

With 2X or 3X, the payment for certain conditions is increased to 100% of your cover. Appendix 2 of the plan provisions lists them, including cancer excluding less advanced cases, heart attack, stroke, multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease and Parkinson’s disease with permanent symptoms. The conditions list below shows which ones.

Vitality warns that for cancer, heart attack or stroke, Serious Illness Cover may pay the same as or less than a policy with critical illness cover.

• You must survive at least 14 days after the event that caused the claim.
• There’s no limit on the number of claims during the term, up to a total of 100% of your cover on 1X, 200% on 2X and 300% on 3X. Each payment reduces the cover left for future claims.
• If one event causes more than one covered illness, Vitality pays one claim, for the illness with the highest severity level.
• A later claim is treated as progressive or unrelated, which affects how much Vitality pays.
• The most you can receive across all claims is £3,000,000, including claims on any other Vitality policies.

Vitality Serious Illness Cover conditions list

The plan provisions group the conditions into body system categories and give each one a severity level. This table lists every condition in Appendix 1 of the provisions (version 02/2025), in the provisions’ order, with its severity level, the share of your cover it pays and the versions that cover it (all versions means 1X, 2X and 3X). Some conditions appear more than once, at different severity levels.

Vitality counts 114 conditions on 1X, 143 on 2X and 174 on 3X. The complications of pregnancy, which the provisions list separately, are at the end.

Some cover is limited: some types of cancer aren’t covered, and some illnesses only qualify with permanent symptoms. The plan also covers low-grade prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 2 to 6 or a TNM classification of T1N0M0.

Your plan schedule shows whether you can make a permanent disability claim.

Vitality’s FAQs say their Serious Illness Cover information, including the counts of 114, 143 and 174 conditions, is about the latest version of the cover, from February 2023, and that anyone with an older plan should check their own plan documents.

We didn’t find published price examples for Vitality’s Serious Illness Cover, so we don’t show any. What you pay depends on your circumstances and the cover you choose.

Vitality says your premium is based on factors including:

Premiums can be guaranteed or reviewable. Reviewable premiums are reviewed in the light of emerging claims experience, not your own health: first on the fifth plan anniversary, then possibly every year, although once a review changes a premium, that premium isn’t reviewed again for five years. There’s no limit on how much a review can change them.

If you choose indexed cover, your premiums rise each year with your cover, unless the Retail Prices Index hasn’t gone up. With Optimiser, your starting premium is lower than for an equivalent plan without it, but it may then rise or stay the same each year depending on your Vitality status.

The minimum premium for a plan is £5 a month or £60 a year, and Vitality gives a discount when you apply for more than one plan at the same time.

If your cover continues as Dementia and FrailCare Cover, you keep paying premiums, but Vitality removes the extra premium for 2X or 3X compared with 1X.

Critical illness cover generally costs more the older you are when you take it out, and the price also depends on your health, whether you smoke, and how much cover you choose and for how long.

Vitality publishes claims figures for Serious Illness Cover. For 2025 it reported:

Serious Illness Cover claims paid in 2025

87.3%

Paid in Serious Illness Cover claims in 2025

£42m

Average Serious Illness Cover claim paid in 2025

£40,516

Largest Serious Illness Cover claim in 2025

£500,000

Vitality’s earlier figures for Serious Illness Cover were 87.8% of claims paid in 2023, 92.5% in 2022 and 91% in 2021.

In 2025, 10.9% of Serious Illness Cover claims were declined because the definition wasn’t met, 1.4% because the condition wasn’t covered and 0.4% for non-disclosure. Vitality says declined claims most often haven’t met the severity threshold.

Vitality says 1 in 7 of the Serious Illness Cover claims it paid in 2025 were for conditions not included in a typical enhanced critical illness plan, and 1 in 10 were paid on plans that had already made a claim.

To claim, contact Vitality by email at lifeclaims@vitality.co.uk or by phone: its Serious Illness Cover page gives 0345 272 8802, and its claims page gives 0345 601 0072 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, excluding bank holidays). It may ask for evidence such as medical reports or confirmation of your diagnosis, and it asks your GP and any specialists treating you for medical evidence. Its Chief Medical Officer then decides whether the claim is valid and which severity level applies.

Vitality must get written notice within six months of the event that causes the claim. How long a claim takes depends on its complexity, and an approved claim is paid as a tax-free lump sum into your bank account.

Answering every question fully and honestly when you apply helps make sure your policy pays out when it’s needed.

Figures are Vitality’s own and cover Serious Illness Cover only. We didn’t find a published 2024 figure.

Vitality’s Serious Illness Cover pays by severity rather than making one full payment: each claim pays 5% to 100% of your cover, and you can keep claiming until you reach 100%, 200% or 300% of your cover on 1X, 2X or 3X. 2X and 3X also pay 100% for the conditions in Appendix 2, including cancer (excluding less advanced cases), heart attack and stroke, and Defaqto rates both 5 stars as critical illness cover.

The trade-off is 1X, Vitality’s standard version. It covers severity levels A to D only, and it pays 25% of your cover for ‘Cancer – excluding less advanced cases’ and ‘Stroke’ and 50% for ‘Heart Attack’, with more only for more advanced or severe cases. Vitality’s plan summary warns that for cancer, heart attack or stroke, Serious Illness Cover may pay the same as or less than a critical illness policy. Defaqto rates 1X 3 stars, and Vitality says you can only upgrade to 2X or 3X through a financial adviser.

Whether it suits you depends on how much you want paid for the most common claims, how much you value smaller payments for less severe conditions, and the price you’re offered, so it’s worth comparing it with other insurers’ cover before you decide.

Vitality says its Serious Illness Cover works differently to critical illness cover: for a covered condition, it may pay more than, the same as or less than a critical illness policy would.

Critical illness policies differ in the conditions they cover, how they define them, how much they pay for each one and whether you can claim more than once, so compare the definitions and the payouts as well as the price.

Our critical illness calculator can help you work out how much cover you might need before you compare quotes.

Our guide to critical illness cover explains how this type of cover works and lists the insurers in our reviews that offer it, alphabetically.

Other insurers’ critical illness cover guides

• Aviva critical illness cover
• Legal & General critical illness cover
• NatWest critical illness cover
• Royal Bank of Scotland critical illness cover
• Zurich critical illness cover

Read our full Vitality life insurance review, or see all our insurer reviews.

This guide is for general information only. Life Cover Quotes does not endorse any specific insurance company or policy.