Put simply, critical illness insurance delivers a predetermined lump sum payment when an insured is diagnosed with a specified eligible medical condition. Critical illness is imprecise and increasingly out of step with the scope of that evolution. The critical illness moniker emerged six years later, when Pegasus Insurance rebranded the product for its U.K. launch. More than 24 Canadian product lines exist under the critical illness banner, with labels like ” covered conditions,” “critical illnesses and conditions” and simply “illnesses.” In short, much of what is currently branded critical illness insurance can’t accurately be described as an illness.