How much critical illness cover do I need?
Add up the debts you’d clear, the take-home pay you’d lose while you’re off work and any extra costs. Then take off your savings and the cover you already have. The total depends on your mortgage or rent, dependants, work benefits and other insurance. The average UK payout was £67,000 in 2025.
In short
- There’s no single formula. The amount depends on your mortgage or rent, debts, dependants, take-home pay, work benefits and any other insurance you have.
- Add up the debts you’d want cleared, the take-home pay you’d lose while you recover and one-off costs, then take off savings you’d use. Our critical illness calculator does this sum.
- The payout is a tax-free lump sum. A full claim usually ends the policy, so the amount has to be enough on its own.
- Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is £123.25 a week, or 80% of your normal weekly earnings if that’s lower, for up to 28 weeks. After the assessment period, New Style ESA pays up to £95.55 a week, or £145.90 in the support group (2026/27 rates).
- The average individual critical illness payout in the UK was £67,000 in 2025, and cancer was behind 65% of claims. Treat averages as a sense check, not a target.
- Each insurer sets its own limits. Guardian, Scottish Widows and Vitality go from £10,000 to £3 million, Post Office from £10,000 to £200,000 at ages 18 to 59, and LV= has no minimum or maximum.
What does the payout need to cover?
It needs to cover the bills, debts and extra costs a serious illness would leave you with. Critical illness cover pays a tax-free lump sum if you’re diagnosed with a condition listed in your policy.
HMRC says the lump sum isn’t taxable as income for the person who receives it.
The amount depends on your mortgage or rent, debts, dependants, take-home pay, work benefits and other insurance. In practice, that comes down to four parts you can add up:
| Part | What to count | Where to find the figure |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage and debts | What you’d want to clear: the mortgage balance you still owe, loans, car finance or credit cards | Your latest mortgage and loan statements |
| Income while you recover | Your take-home pay for the months you might be off work, allowing for any sick pay or benefits | Your payslips and your employer’s sick pay policy |
| One-off costs | Changes to your home, equipment, travel to appointments or treatment | Quotes for the work, and the extra costs below |
| Less: savings and other cover | Savings you’d be willing to use, and cover you already have through work or other policies | Your bank statements and your employer’s benefits package |
You might not need critical illness cover if your savings could cover your bills, rent or mortgage and the extra costs of a serious illness or disability. The same goes if your employer’s benefits scheme already gives you some cover.
A work package might include income protection for a set period if you can’t work, or a form of life insurance. Life cover pays out if you die, so it doesn’t count towards this amount.
If the full amount costs too much
You can adjust the amount of cover to suit your needs and monthly payments. If covering everything costs too much, think about your priorities, such as keeping up your mortgage or rent payments, or consider a lower level of cover. Some protection might still be better than none.
How do your mortgage and other debts fit in?
Start with what you’d want the lump sum to clear, beginning with your mortgage. On a repayment mortgage, what you owe falls every month. On an interest-only mortgage, you still owe the full amount borrowed at the end of the term.
Critical illness cover can be level, decreasing (the payout falls over time) or increasing. At Zurich, decreasing cover falls in line with a repayment mortgage and is typically cheaper than level or increasing cover.
Aviva’s decreasing Critical Illness Plan cover falls every month using a fixed interest rate of 8%. Legal & General tells people taking out decreasing life insurance to check that their mortgage rate doesn’t rise above the rate applied to the policy. If it did, the cover could fall faster than your loan.
Count other debts you’d want cleared too, such as a personal loan, car finance or a credit card. If you rent, your rent payments count the same way as a mortgage.
Because it can protect a mortgage, critical illness cover is often set up in joint names. Accelerated cover combines life and critical illness cover in one policy. It pays out on the first event, either death or a critical illness diagnosis, and then ends.
New Style ESA has no extra amount for housing costs. Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) usually helps pay the interest on up to £200,000 of a mortgage. On Universal Credit, it can start after 3 months in a row on the benefit. It’s a loan you repay with interest when you sell or transfer your home.
Critical illness cover sold with a mortgage isn’t the same as mortgage payment protection insurance. That only covers your mortgage payments and usually stops after a set time.
- Mortgage life insurance: cover that pays off the mortgage if you die
- Mortgage life insurance calculator
- Decreasing term life insurance
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How much would sick pay and benefits pay you?
Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) pays up to £123.25 a week, and benefits might not be enough to replace your income. Your lump sum only needs to fill the gap between what you’d get anyway and the take-home pay you’d lose.
Your employer pays SSP for up to 28 weeks, with tax and National Insurance taken off. At the full rate that’s £3,451 before deductions. An employer’s own sick pay scheme can pay more, so check your contract, though employees are usually moved onto SSP within six months. If you’re self-employed, you won’t get sick pay, but you might qualify for benefits.
You can apply for New Style Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) whether you’re employed, self-employed or unemployed. You’ll need to have paid enough National Insurance contributions, usually in the last 2 to 3 years. You can’t get it while you’re getting SSP from an employer, but you can apply up to 3 months before your SSP ends.
| Support | How much | For how long |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory Sick Pay | £123.25 a week, or 80% of your normal weekly earnings if lower | Up to 28 weeks |
| ESA assessment rate | Up to £75.65 a week if you’re under 25, up to £95.55 a week if you’re 25 or over | Normally 13 weeks, while your claim is assessed |
| ESA, work-related activity group | Up to £95.55 a week | New Style ESA: 365 days |
| ESA, support group | Up to £145.90 a week | New Style ESA: no time limit |
Rates from GOV.UK. Statutory Sick Pay has tax and National Insurance deducted.
Your savings, or your partner’s, don’t affect New Style ESA. Universal Credit is different: it counts all the money, savings and investments you own, including savings for medical care. You usually can’t claim with more than £16,000, and payments drop by £4.35 for every £250 between £6,000 and £16,000. If you might claim it, ask the DWP how a payout would be treated.
Critical illness cover is typically taken out alongside other cover, such as life insurance or income protection. Income protection typically replaces 50% to 65% of your income. Payments often start after a waiting period, most commonly 4, 13 or 26 weeks or a year. With it in place, you could count less lost pay in your lump sum.
Critical illness cover only pays for the conditions in your policy. Common illnesses that keep people off work, such as back problems and stress, aren’t covered. Income protection vs critical illness cover compares the two.
Some policies can also pay a critical illness claim as an income. At Royal London, you can choose a lump sum or a level or increasing monthly income.
- Income protection vs critical illness cover: how the two compare
- Income protection calculator: what a regular income while you can’t work might look like
- Life insurance for the self-employed
What extra costs can a serious illness bring?
A serious illness can bring costs on top of your normal bills, such as adapting your home or travel to appointments. Cancer, behind 65% of individual claims in 2025, can add hospital parking, travel fares and higher heating bills.
You may be able to get special equipment or aids for living at home for free. If you’d want private treatment to help you recover, add its cost to your one-off figure.
Changes to your home
If you’re disabled and need to adapt your home, you could get a Disabled Facilities Grant from your council (from the Housing Executive in Northern Ireland). It can help pay to widen doors, install ramps or improve access to rooms, for example with a stairlift or downstairs bathroom.
| Nation | Grant |
|---|---|
| England | Up to £30,000 |
| Wales | Up to £36,000 |
| Northern Ireland | Up to £25,000 |
| Scotland | Disabled Facilities Grants aren’t available; local councils may offer a grant to help cover the cost of adapting your home |
From GOV.UK and Macmillan Cancer Support, checked October 2026.
How much you get usually depends on your household income and household savings over £6,000. You may need to pay towards the work, though some councils may give more. Count your share in your one-off costs.
Macmillan says a grant for home adaptations doesn’t affect any benefits you get. Universal Credit ignores grants for essential adaptations to your main home for 6 months, or longer if the work takes more time.
Help with day-to-day costs
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) helps if you have problems with everyday tasks or moving around. It’s for people aged 16 to State Pension age in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, you’d apply for Adult Disability Payment instead.
PIP isn’t awarded because of a cancer diagnosis. It depends on how you manage daily tasks such as washing, dressing, cooking and eating, and your income and savings don’t affect a claim.
How much do critical illness claims pay on average?
About £67,000. That was the average individual critical illness payout in the UK in 2025, close to £67,267 in 2023 and £67,600 in 2024. Claims show the cover people chose, so treat the average as a sense check, not a target.
| Average payout | |
|---|---|
| 2023 | £67,267 |
| 2024 | £67,600 |
| 2025 | £67,000 |
Association of British Insurers (ABI) figures, as it publishes them.
Insurers’ own 2025 averages are mostly in the same range. Vitality’s is lower, but it isn’t directly comparable: its standard Serious Illness Cover pays between 25% and 100% of the cover amount on each claim.
| Insurer | Average payout | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Aviva | £69,559 | 5,586 claims, including total permanent disability and children’s benefit |
| Legal & General | £71,755 | Critical illness claims |
| Royal London | About £67,000 | £198m paid to 2,959 customers |
| Vitality | £40,516 | Serious Illness Cover claims |
Some policies also make a smaller payment for less severe conditions, or if one of your children has a listed condition. Royal London has 32 additional conditions that pay 50% of the cover, up to £35,000. Zurich’s two additional payment conditions, less advanced breast and prostate cancer, pay up to £25,000.
Your cover may need to last for years
In Legal & General’s 2025 figures, the average critical illness claimant was 49, and their policy had been running for 9 years on average. The amount you choose now may need to do its job years from now. Our guide to critical illness payout rates compares insurers’ claims in more detail.
How does the critical illness calculator work?
Our critical illness calculator adds up the four parts. It works out the income you’d need while you recover (yearly take-home pay × months off ÷ 12), adds your mortgage and one-off costs, then takes off your savings. The result never goes below £0.
- Enter your take-home pay Your yearly pay after tax and National Insurance.
- Choose the months off work How long you might be unable to work, less any time your employer would keep paying you.
- Add your mortgage The balance you still owe, if you’d want it cleared.
- Add one-off costs Home changes, equipment, travel and treatment.
- Take off savings Only the savings you’d be willing to use. MoneyHelper suggests trying to save enough to cover three months of living expenses.
With the calculator’s starting figures (an example, not a recommendation), £32,000 of yearly take-home pay and 12 months off work gives £32,000. Add a £180,000 mortgage and £10,000 of one-off costs, take off £5,000 of savings, and the estimate is £217,000.
Will insurers cover that amount?
Each insurer sets its own limits on the sum assured (the amount paid out), and some lower the maximum for older applicants. Our company index lists every insurer we review.
| Insurer | Policy | Amount of cover |
|---|---|---|
| Aviva | Critical illness cover | Up to £1,000,000, ages 18 to 64 |
| Beagle Street | Life Insurance with Critical Illness | Up to £300,000; the age of the oldest person covered may reduce this |
| Guardian | Combined Life and Critical Illness Protection | £10,000 to £3 million |
| Legal & General | Life insurance with Critical Illness Cover, through advisers | Up to £3 million, or £2 million where the own occupation definition of total permanent disability applies |
| LV= | Life and Critical Illness | No minimum or maximum |
| Post Office | Critical Illness Cover, added to Post Office Life Insurance | £10,000 minimum; maximum £200,000 at ages 18 to 59, £100,000 at 60 to 64, £50,000 at 65 to 69 and £25,000 at 70, and no more than the life cover |
| Scottish Widows | Protect Life with Critical Illness Cover | £10,000 to £3,000,000 |
| Vitality | Serious Illness Cover 1X | £10,000 to £3,000,000; indexed cover up to £1,500,000, rising to £3,000,000 |
From each insurer’s website or policy documents. Limits can change, so check before you apply.
Does more critical illness cover cost more?
Generally, yes. Policies with more cover tend to cost more. Premiums (your monthly payments) can vary widely, and depend on your age, whether you smoke, your health, your job and whether the payout is fixed or rises with inflation.
Post Office publishes example monthly premiums for £100,000 of life cover with £30,000 of critical illness cover, beside its prices for life cover alone. They’re for non-smokers with healthy lifestyles and no pre-existing medical conditions, on a 21-year level term, and dated 2026.
| Age | £100,000 life cover only | £100,000 life cover with £30,000 critical illness cover |
|---|---|---|
| 31 | From £7.54 | £16.33 |
| 41 | From £15.51 | £34.70 |
| 51 | From £37.88 | £80.80 |
Post Office’s illustrations, not quotes.
These are examples, not prices for you. Post Office’s Critical Illness Cover pays out for four conditions: cancer (excluding less advanced cases), coronary artery bypass grafts, heart attack of specified severity and stroke with permanent symptoms. Comparing quotes for two or three amounts shows what each would cost.
Waiver of premium costs a bit extra and covers your monthly payments if illness or injury stops you working. On critical illness cover, it usually only starts after you’ve been off sick for at least six months.
Can you change the amount later?
On some policies, yes. Increasing cover can rise with inflation each year, and some insurers let you add cover after certain life events.
On increasing cover, Aviva’s payout rises each year with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) and Post Office’s with the Retail Price Index (RPI), both by up to 10%. At Aviva, your premiums go up at 1.5 times the rate of the CPI increase, and you can choose not to take an increase.
Adding cover after a life event
Some insurers let you increase your cover when certain life events happen. Legal & General offers this if the policy started before the life insured’s 55th birthday, and your Policy Schedule shows whether you have it. Vitality includes it if you were accepted at standard rates with no special exclusions. At Legal & General, the events include:
- marriage, a registered civil partnership, divorce or dissolution
- the birth or legal adoption of a child
- a pay rise from a promotion or new job
- a bigger mortgage to move house or carry out major home improvements
You must tell Legal & General within six months of the event. You can’t use the option after the life insured’s 55th birthday (on a joint policy, once the eldest reaches 55). All increases together can’t be more than £200,000 or 100% of the original cover, whichever is lower.
At Aviva, a higher cover amount on a Critical Illness Plan means a new policy alongside your original one, at the premium rates available then. Aviva may ask more health and lifestyle questions, and depending on your answers, it may not be able to make the change.
What should you check before you choose an amount?
Check four things before you settle on a figure: your mortgage balance, your employer’s sick pay, your savings and the cover you already have.
- Check your latest mortgage and debt balances Look up what you still owe on your mortgage, loans and credit cards. Then decide whether level, decreasing or increasing cover fits.
- Read your employer’s sick pay and benefits policy Check how long your employer would pay you more than SSP (employees are usually moved onto SSP within six months), and whether your benefits package already includes cover.
- Decide which savings you’d use Only take off savings you’d be willing to spend during an illness, and keep the rest for emergencies.
- Compare quotes for two or three amounts You can adjust the amount to fit your monthly budget, and some protection might still be better than none. A broker will call to go through quotes with you.
- Critical illness cover: how it works and who offers it
- What critical illness cover covers
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How much critical illness cover do I need? FAQs
There isn’t one figure that suits everyone. The amount depends on your mortgage or rent, other debts, dependants, take-home pay, work benefits and other insurance. As a starting point, add up what you’d want cleared, the take-home pay you’d lose and one-off costs, then take off savings you’d use. Our critical illness calculator does the sum.
No. HMRC’s guidance says a critical illness lump sum isn’t taxable as income for the person who receives it.
Your monthly premium depends on your age, health, job, whether you smoke, the amount of cover and whether the payout stays fixed or rises with inflation. Post Office’s 2026 examples are for healthy non-smokers on a 21-year level term. For £100,000 of life cover with £30,000 of critical illness cover, they’re £16.33 a month at 31, £34.70 at 41 and £80.80 at 51.
No, though it can. At Zurich, decreasing cover falls in line with a repayment mortgage and is typically cheaper than level or increasing cover. Level cover stays the same, so as a repayment mortgage shrinks, more of the payout is left for lost pay, treatment or changes to your home. You can also choose a smaller amount to fit your budget.
It depends on the benefit. Your savings don’t affect New Style ESA, and your income and savings don’t affect Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Universal Credit is different. It counts your money, savings and investments: you usually can’t claim with more than £16,000, and amounts over £6,000 reduce your payments. Ask the DWP how a payout would be treated.
On some policies, yes. Increasing cover at Aviva (in line with CPI) and Post Office (in line with RPI) rises each year by up to 10%. Legal & General and Vitality also let some policyholders increase their cover after certain life events.
A full claim usually pays out once and ends the policy. Some policies also make a smaller payment for less severe conditions, or if one of your children has a listed condition. Some of these payments don’t reduce your remaining cover. Aviva’s children’s benefit, for example, doesn’t end the main policy. Vitality’s standard level Serious Illness Cover works differently: each claim pays between 25% and 100% of the cover amount.
Sources
The facts on this page come from these sources.
- MoneyHelper: What is critical illness cover? (opens in a new tab); How to know what kind of protection insurance you need (opens in a new tab); Interest-only and repayment mortgages explained (opens in a new tab); Ways of repaying an interest-only mortgage (opens in a new tab); Personal insurance when you’re self-employed (opens in a new tab); What is income protection insurance? (opens in a new tab) · moneyhelper.org.uk, accessed 26 September 2026 and 2 October 2026; 2 October 2026; 26 September 2026.
- Association of British Insurers: Protection insurers pay out £7.84 billion to help customers safeguard their finances (2025 claims) (opens in a new tab); Critical illness cover (opens in a new tab); ABI Guide to Minimum Standards for Critical Illness Cover (16 September 2022, updated April 2023) (opens in a new tab); Protection insurers pay out record £7.34 billion to support individuals and families (2023 claims) (opens in a new tab); Record £8bn paid out in vital protection claims during 2024 (opens in a new tab) · abi.org.uk, keystone-cms-production-amfyhhecavg8gneq.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net, accessed 26 September 2026.
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Insurer documents:
Aviva,
Beagle Street,
Guardian,
Legal & General,
LV=,
Post Office,
Royal London,
Scottish Widows,
Vitality,
Zurich.
Show the 23 documents
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