Critical Illness Insurance Global Market Report 2022

Major players in the critical illness market are China Life Insurance, Allianz, Ping An Insurance, Aviva, Legal & General, China Pacific Insurance, Prudential plc, New China Life Insurance, Aegon, and AXA.

The global critical illness insurance market is expected to grow from $185.53 billion in 2021 to $215.49 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.2%. The market is expected to grow to $330.36 billion in 2026 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.3%.

The critical illness insurance market consists of sales of critical illness insurance by entities (organizations, sole traders, and partnerships) that are engaged in directly underwriting critical illness cover or a dread disease policy, which is additional insurance coverage to cover those overruns where traditional health insurance may fall short. Only goods and services traded between entities or sold to end consumers are included.

The main types of critical illness insurance are individual insurance, family insurance.Family insurance refers to the insurance that is issued to the family members including the holder.

The various modes include monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, yearly. These are used in cancer, heart attack, stroke, other applications.

North America was the largest region in the critical illness market in 2021.Asia Pacific was the second largest market in critical illness market.

The regions covered in this report are Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Middle East, and Africa.

The increased prevalence of critical diseases is driving the global critical illness insurance market.Treatment for critical illnesses such as cancer incurs a huge amount and therefore having critical illness insurance can be beneficial to lower the burden of the treatment cost.

The insurance service providers provide a lump-sum payment to the policyholder upon diagnosis of the critical disease.Some other types of common critical illnesses include heart attack, stroke, and coronary artery bypass.

According to the cancer profile 2020 report by WHO, the incidence of global cancer in 2020 was reported as 10 million deaths that occurred in the year due to cancer. Therefore, the growing prevalence of critical illness is expected to drive the global critical illness insurance market.

Lack of awareness about critical illness insurance is hindering the growth of the global critical insurance market.Most of the critical illness insurances are included with term plans.

Most people are aware of the life insurance plans but are not much aware of the term plans.A term plan is a type of life insurance plan for a fixed tenure that includes critical illness cover as an inbuilt feature in the actual base plan.

Besides being economical, benefits provided on the demise of the policyholder are more in the case of term plans when compared to the maturity benefits offered by life insurance plans.For instance, a research study published in Economic Times, in 2020 says that only 1 out of 5 insurance holders have term insurance in urban India which is 65% of the population of urban India.

This is mostly due to the lack of awareness in people about term plans offered by insurers that also include a critical illness cover.

An increase in the range of critical illnesses covered in the critical illness insurance policies is a major trend shaping the critical insurance market.Major insurance companies are focusing on adding coverage for many new diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and motor neuron diseases besides cancer, stroke, coronary artery bypass, and heart attack.

For instance, according to Parkinson’s Foundation, 1 million people are suffering from the disease in the US and it is expected to reach 1.2 million by 2030. This increase in the range of critical illnesses is responsible for the growing trend in insurance policies.

In July 2019, Prudential plc, a company operating in critical illness insurance based in the United Kingdom acquired Group Beneficial for an undisclosed amount.This acquisition enhances Prudential’s growing scale in Africa by entering Cameroon.

Group Beneficial, is a company operating in critical illness insurance specialized in life insurance based in the United States.

The countries covered in the critical illness market report are Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea, UK, and USA.