Well, if you really want to try to go it alone you can consider the following. Critical Illness cover comes in two main guises, Term or Whole of Life.

Within Term, it can be broken down into Level Term, Reducing Term, Mortgage Protection Term, Family Income Benefit, Term on its own or with a death benefit, Term that renews each 10 years and can go on through life. You can have premiums that are guaranteed for the policy term or premiums that are reviewed. You can have policies that increase at specific rates, remain level, or poodle along with the Retail Price Index or the Average Earnings Index.

Now, if you think that's complicated, Whole of Life policies come in two main types:- Maximum cover or Standard cover. Both have the ability to cover you throughout life, but the premiums are lower for Maximum cover for the first 10 years and then they start to increase, sometimes substantially. The Standard cover is more expensive at first, but although it has a review at the 10 year stage, premiums are designed not to require to be increased unless the investment performance of the underlying assets is less than estimated.

A good Financial Adviser can guide you through the different types of policy and find one exactly right for your personal circumstances.