To make our Critical Illness coverage available to more employers and employees, we have made three important enhancements in 2010:

• The pre-existing condition limitation has been removed on employer-paid critical illness plans. This will give critical illness coverage to employees who previously may not have qualified.*

• The 2-year limit on the duration of portability has been removed on all critical illness plans. Now if an employee terminates employment, he or she can take their critical illness coverage with them, and keep it until age 70. This gives employees more flexibility and makes the plan competitive with individual critical illness coverage.

• Critical Illness is now available to employers with 2-15 employees. Smaller companies can now get the same coverage as larger companies.

Critical Illness coverage helps protect employees’ financial well-being as they recover from a serious illness. Payments can be used to cover out-of-pocket medical expenses like deductibles, experimental treatments, or even non-medical expenses like mortgage payments or child care.

Lump sum amounts are available from $1,000 to $50,000**, and guarantee issue amounts are available up to $20,000 based on group size. We also provide up to $500 per day for hospitalization due to a non-critical illness.

For more information, contact your local Guardian Group Sales Representative, or click here to find an office near you.

* Available on groups with 10+ eligible lives.
** Limited to $25,000 for groups with 2-9 lives.

Critical Illness benefit is not available in all states.