Legal & General has made changes to its Critical Illness Cover (CIC), to its Critical Illness Extra (CIx) and Children’s Critical Illness Extra (CCIx) offering.

Updates include increasing additional payments for CIx to 25% of the sum assured up to a maximum of £30,000, and CCIx to 50% of the sum assured, up to a maximum of £30,000.

As well as improving their definitions for heart attack and dementia, and added craniosynostosis to the list of conditions covered under CCIx.

In addition, Legal & General’s Critical Illness Cover continues to pay Children’s Critical Illness claims on a level lump sum basis for both level and decreasing policies.

The update follows Legal & General’s latest ‘Cost of Critical Illness’ research, which highlights the importance of protection. The research found that the UK’s four biggest critical illness (cancer, MS, stroke and coronary heart disease) take more than £15bn a year out of the UK economy. With 23% of employers state that critical conditions such as cancer or a heart attack are the most common cause of long term absences.

Craig Brown, director of intermediary at Legal & General, said: “We’ve listened carefully to feedback from advisers to make these latest changes to our CIC offering. These updates will ultimately help us to better serve our intermediary partners, providing them and their clients with more choice of cover, whilst not compromising on our price or quality.

“We’ve updated our critical illness products this year with the launch of the optional Children’s Critical Illness Extra and Critical Illness Extra to add further choice to the CIC range, and will continue to do so moving forward.”