Here’s the number one thing you need to know about Life Insurance: it isn’t actually for you; you'll be dead (sorry).

However, if you want to protect yourself while you're alive and kicking, then Serious Illness Cover is an option (but it isn't as good as income protection)

Also known as Specified Illness Cover and Critical Illness Cover, Serious Illness Cover pays you cash money if you get a serious illness.

According to the Marie Keating Foundation, around 3,200 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Ireland each year.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in Ireland, after skin cancer.

1 in 10 women in Ireland develops breast cancer during their lifetime.

So it's no surprise that we advise a lot of women who have had breast cancer or who have a family history of breast cancer.

When it comes to comparing life insurance insurance policies, it's usually a reasonably open playing field between the providers.

For Serious Illness Cover, we're going to pooh-pooh Aviva (sorry Aviva but your definitions are more difficult to satisfy than your competitors making it harder to make a successful claim)

Let's look at what Serious Illness Cover actually does.

Critical illness.

It’s a two-word pairing that strikes fear in your heart.

Like terminal cancer and heart disease.

Or Donald Trump.

All equally calamitous harbingers of doom.

You know how in Batman – the cartoon, film, or comic, you choose – the big lad himself will go toe-to-toe with a villain.

Then he’ll reach into his trustee utility belt to get whatever tool he needs to save the day?

Well, the tools come in 10 pouches (I Googled this, dear internet, for I am not a nerd who automatically knows such things) and include his Batarang, napalm (as ya do), a tranq gun and smoke pellets.

Multi-claim Protection Insurance is a bit like the Bat-belt of insurance.

Mind, I wouldn’t try and use it to fight crime as throwing a policy document at The Joker won’t accomplish much.

Remember being 14 or 15 in maths class in school?

Your teacher, probably a bit of a gowl, would spend ages explaining the complicated maths on the board, and then he’d ask you if you understood.

You probably didn’t, but you said ‘yes’ anyway because you didn’t want to look like stupid.

Next thing you know, Mr McGowl has asked you to come up to the board to solve an equation for ‘x’. You couldn’t find that ‘x’ if it was inscribed onto your forehead.

And all you can do is go up there and write some crap on the board while Mc Gowl tuts away.

The insurers quite often play this game when they name and explain things.

Even with the best intentions (I’ll let you consider how true that might be), they have a way of explaining things so that you can’t figure it out.

An example?

Serious Illness Cover.

Although life insurance providers will decline some claims (usually because of lying on the application form), if you have a genuine claim that meets the definition of the illness , they will happily pay out.

If the insurers don't pay claims, then what's the point of serious illness cover?

This why they welcome claims so they can prove how important serious illness cover is.

So, let's examine why an insurer may refuse to pay a claim

I'm not one for taking sides or having favourites, but it's hard to ignore Royal London's serious illness cover when making a recommendation.

Serious illness cover has never been my favourite insurance.

It's hit-and-miss; with limited illnesses covered, you can't always be sure that it's a backup plan that will have your back.

But here comes Royal London Ireland storming the stage with some sassy, serious illness specifications.

And some of their improved Specified Serious Illness Cover are unique in Ireland.

So, let's dig a little deeper and plough through all the jargon and whatnot to make sense of what Royal London Ireland offers.