Many of those who buy critical illness insurance may do so out of what they view as great caution. Most don’t expect to use it for many years, if at all. But the following stories of those who have been stricken with a serious illness in middle age show how unpredictable life can be — and how adequate resources at the right time can help clients recover more quickly, or significantly improve the final years of their life.

You can count jo-anne Ilkiw among the true believers when it comes to the benefits of CI insurance. If both she and her late husband had not bought CI insurance when they did, the past 10 years would have been even more difficult than they turned out to be.

“When you’re dealing with an illness such as cancer, the last thing you want to think about is money,” says Ilkiw, who lives in Stittsville, Ont., a suburb of Ottawa.

That’s why the funds from a CI claim that her husband, Ross Cathcart, received when he found out he had cancer and, later, the CI claim money Ilkiw received when she found out she had cancer, turned out to be so useful.

“I’d highly recommend [CI insurance] to anybody,” Ilkiw says. “It’s almost a no-brainer.”

In 1998, Ilkiw and her husband, then both in their late 30s, each bought CI from Judith Cane of Ottawa-based Antara Financial Group. Cathcart, a stationary engineer, and Ilkiw, a federal government employee, had hoped to retire at 55 and had put a financial plan together to do just that, with CI insurance being a key component.

A year later, Cathcart was diagnosed with low-grade non-Hodgkins lymphoma and made a claim on the CI policy, receiving a significant payout from the carrier, Commercial Union Life Holdings Canada Ltd. (acquired by Manulife Financial Corp. in 2001). He was just the second person in the Ottawa area to receive funds from a CI insurance claim.

The original prognosis was for Cathcart to live another 15 to 20 years with the cancer, depending on how he responded to treatment. He returned to work.

In 2001, Ilkiw went on long-term disability from her job after the stress of dealing with her husband’s illness — he had a bone marrow transplant that year — and deaths in her extended family became too much to bear.

In 2003, Cathcart retired from his job and the couple spent the next year together tending to the garden in their home, travelling to Mexico and the Caribbean, and enjoying each other’s company, all of which was possible because of the CI insurance payout.

“They had a great last year together,” says Cane, who remained close friends with the couple in the years since first selling them the CI insurance policies.

In 2004, Cathcart, after five years of struggling with his disease, died of complications due to his cancer. “He died unexpectedly,” Ilkiw says.

The next year, Ilkiw found out she had vulvar cancer; she is still fighting the disease. Ilkiw also has received a significant payout from her CI insurance policy.

“It was helpful this time, as well,” she says, “in terms of getting anything I would want or need to make this comfortable.”

Ilkiw, who still lives in the same house that she and her husband shared, credits her late husband with having the foresight to build a financial plan, including buying CI insurance.

“He was the one who saved and planned for the future, and I just tagged along,” she says. “I’m glad he did.”



Mark Schulhof has been a fan of CI insurance from the time he first heard about the product more than a decade ago.

In fact, the financial planner and president of Cara Financial Inc. in Vancouver bought his first CI policy in 1999, not long after such policies first became available in Canada. He added another policy in 2001, effectively doubling his coverage. Today, Schulhof estimates that approximately half of his firm’s business consists of selling disability and CI insurance products to his client base of small-business owners.

Although none of his clients yet have had cause to make any claims on their CI insurance policies, Schulhof himself did earlier this year, after suffering a heart attack and undergoing a successful triple-bypass surgery.

@page_break@“I’m very fortunate that I’m on the right side of the dirt,” says the 59-year-old Schulhof. “I’m very happy about that.”

Through December and January, Schulhof, who worked hard at running his business and led an active lifestyle, had been feeling a little off. He ascribed the discomfort he felt to indigestion or acid reflux. Then, on a Saturday night in February, he and his wife, Suzanne, left a party and went to the Vancouver General Hospital after Schulhof started feeling dizzy. An angiogram revealed that he had complete blockages in two arteries and an 80% blockage in a third artery. And, sometime during the previous two months, Schulhof had experienced a heart attack without realizing it.

Schulhof was kept in the hospital, and on Feb. 13, underwent the triple-bypass surgery.

“I didn’t know I was a ticking time bomb,” says Schulhof, who is grateful that he had his two CI insurance policies in place. When the paperwork is finalized, Schulhof is set to receive a six-figure payout, as the policies cover bypass surgeries.

“It’s made a huge difference, in terms of my psyche,” Schulhof explains. “You don’t want to worry about money when you’re trying to recover. Having coverage took all the stress away from me.”

Of course, the heart attack and the bypass surgery that followed has had a big effect on both Schulhof and his wife. Schulhof has been forced to make changes to his diet and undertake a workout plan, although he has to remember to take it slow. And, at least for the next little while, Suzanne has taken over the driving duties for the couple.

“Bypass surgery is really a stressful, pretty major operation,” Schulhof says. “It’s still affecting me today.”

Schulhof is also weighing his options for the future regarding his business. The fact that he can count on a CI insurance payout means he can make a decision when the time is right, he says, and not be forced to go back to work earlier than necessary or to take a bigger role than he wants or is able to take.

And Schulhof is making sure to take his new life in stride.

“I have a very positive attitude. I’m an eternal optimist,” he says. “I still have a couple of glasses of wine a day.”



Renee Jacoby was a healthy, athletic, independent woman in her early 50s when, out of the blue, she had a heart attack in December 2005. After doctors performed an angioplasty and two
stents were put into a narrowed artery, she began travelling down her long road to recovery, a road she is still on today. But her life — what she eats, what she can do and when — has changed completely.

The silver lining, she says, was the CI insurance policy she took out seven months before her heart attack. The six-figure sum she received on her claim allowed her to concentrate just on getting better.

“I didn’t have to worry about mortgage payments; I didn’t have to worry about how much my medications cost,” says the 54-year-old Toronto woman. “I had the privilege of just thinking of myself. It helped me recover so much better.”

Jacoby, a divorced mother of two adult children, hadn’t even heard of CI insurance when she got a call from her financial advisor in early 2005. Although Jacoby was the picture of health, her advisor urged her to add a CI insurance policy to her financial plan.

The only trouble was that a history of breast cancer in her family made it difficult to get a policy. Initial attempts to get one were denied. Her advisor put her in contact with Mark Halpern, a certified financial planner and insurance specialist withillnessPROTECTION.com Inc. in Markham, Ont., who was able to get her a “rated” policy — one in which the premiums were set higher to reflect the higher risk of insuring the client and one that largely excluded breast cancer coverage.

Halpern says that clients who know they have a family history of a particular disease tend to be more vigilant about checking for the onset of that disease, and have a better chance of catching it early when it still can be treated. The CI policy, then, can protect the client from all other critical illnesses.

Jacoby, who runs her own business as a life and transition coach, had no history of heart trouble in her family and worked out regularly. In rehabilitation sessions after her heart attack, she met many people in her situation who were not only struggling with their recovery but were also beside themselves with worry about their financial situation.

“I saw a grown man cry, telling me that he was afraid of losing his house,” she remembers. “Others told me they were forced to go back to work early and put their health at risk — just six weeks after the heart attack, in one case — as a result of not being covered for anything.”

The money from Jacoby’s CI insurance claim not only has helped her recover, it has also allowed her to return to being a caregiver for the rest of her family. In 2006, her father died and her mother found out she had a recurrence of cancer. In addition, Jacoby’s 25-year-old son is dealing with a health issue of his own, which has forced him to alter his educational plans.

“The money has allowed me to give emotional time [to my family], to love and care for those relationships,” Jacoby says. “It’s just the most wonderful thing.” IE