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Buying life insurance and critical illness cover together in one policy might seem like a good idea. Not only is it easier to set up one plan, but combining policies is normally cheaper. You will have a single policy which will pay out a lump sum if you die, or you suffer an illness covered by the plan during the term you choose.

Do you have enough protection?
I know it’s not a very cheery topic, but it’s important to understand the risks of under-insuring yourself. After all, wrapping different types of cover up into one neat plan could actually leave you without all the protection you need.

When you have combined life insurance and critical illness cover, you’re normally only able to make a claim once. Once you’ve made a claim for critical illness, the policy stops. You immediately lose the life insurance cover which was bundled into the same policy.

Since you were a small boy you were close to uncle Mike, your mother’s brother. In later years you became firm friends and more than once he told you that you were the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. He passed on a year ago and there is no sign of the policy.

If you're a beneficiary and you find the lost life insurance policy shortly after the insured dies (within six months to a year, for example), claiming the death benefit should be trouble-free.