Royal London has made changes to its critical illness and children’s critical illness cover available through its menu plans.

A new conversion option has been added to Royal London’s enhanced children’s critical illness cover. This allows the policyholder’s children to take out their own critical illness cover without any medical underwriting, within six months of the children’s cover ending. It has also increased the maximum age a child is covered under its children’s critical illness cover to 23 if they are in full-time education (21 otherwise).

Advanced surgery benefit has been added to the critical illness cover, which allows a pay out to be made as soon as a customer is on an NHS waiting list for surgery, rather than after it is performed. This applies to any of the 12 surgeries within the policies’ main definitions.

Royal London has also removed the drug and alcohol exclusion from its critical illness cover, as well as combining several definitions for simplicity, helping provide better outcomes for customers.

Royal London says the developments are part of its focus on providing cover where it matters and paying claims faster.

Jennifer Gilchrist (pictured), protection specialist at Royal London, said: “The changes we have made are simple and focus on offering cover where it matters. These enhancements to our critical illness cover are part of our ongoing mission to make a real difference to our customers, by removing barriers to claims and making even faster payments.”