Is it usual for terminal illness cover to be provided within the last 12 months of policy term since this will increase costs significantly?
ANY terminal illness cover increases costs significantly for stand-alone critical illness plans - since these don't have a death benefit so wouldn't necessarily payout otherwise, unless the terminal illness was due to one of the covered conditions. For accelerated CI plans, terminal illness cover doesn't have a huge impact on cost since these plans would pay out on death anyway. Main effect is to bring forward the payment. As you correctly imply though, the last few months do increase the cost because someone diagnosed with a terminal illness at that point might die outside of the term of the plan - meaning no payment would otherwise be necessary. It would be unusual (and probably controversial) to exclude these though - we'd just price the plan accordingly.
