Critical illness cover with no medical questions is available through some employer group schemes, where the insurer relies on an exclusion for past illness instead of asking. A policy you apply for yourself, such as Aviva's Life Insurance+, which offers life cover or life and critical illness cover, asks about your health when you apply.

An FCA-authorised broker can compare an employer's scheme with personal critical illness cover for your health history over the phone, free; health details wait for the call, so the form on this page is brief.

How does group critical illness cover handle health evidence?

Group critical illness is bought by an employer for its staff. Insurers' technical guides, written for employers and advisers, describe how little health information members may have to give. What the cover is and how it is taxed is in group critical illness cover; here the point is how each insurer handles evidence of health.

Insurer's guideWhat it prints about medical evidence
Aviva, Group Critical Illness Technical Guide (GR03004 02/2026)"We don’t need any evidence of health about the members or children before the policy begins." The guide says there is "no medical underwriting needed for members", but a pre-existing and associated conditions exclusion applies.
Legal & General, group critical illness technical guide (CIC 04/26, W8851 04/26)It usually sets a free limit, "the maximum amount of cover we can give without the insured employees needing to give us medical evidence". Above it, an employee completes a member’s declaration form.
Canada Life, Introduction to Group Critical Illness (GRP1358–0426RC)"Most employees can be covered with no medical underwriting as we apply a pre-existing conditions exclusion." The free cover level is stated as up to £500,000, and applies to employees who join under the scheme's normal eligibility.

In each case the saving of medical questions comes with the exclusion. Aviva's guide says it will not pay a claim for a critical illness or operation that existed before the member joined, nor one within two years of joining that relates to an insured condition. Its glossary counts an illness as pre-existing if the member had received medication, advice, treatment or diagnostic tests, or experienced symptoms that resulted in it. Legal & General's guide applies a similar exclusion to a condition the person had before cover started and to related conditions arising within two years.

Above a free limit the position changes. If Legal & General accepts cover above the free limit, its guide says the exclusions no longer apply to the cover it has agreed, but any special terms it sets apply to all the employee's cover. It may ask for more evidence, including a medical examination and tests, and says it pays for those. If the employer is not happy with special terms, the guide gives it 30 days to write and cancel the cover above the free limit, and the exclusions then return for cover below it. Canada Life says it may need medical information, for example when an employee has a particularly high level of cover.

For partners and children, Legal & General needs no medical evidence when cover starts, but the exclusions always apply to their cover. Your own scheme's limit is in its documents or with your employer.

What happens at claim time if nobody asked at the start?

Aviva's guide says that if a claim is made, "we’ll investigate whether or not" the illness, a related illness or an associated condition "existed before the policy started, and then assess the claim." So the checking moves from the start of cover to the claim. Whether a past symptom would count under your scheme depends on its wording. Critical illness cover for pre-existing conditions sets out how individual policies treat past conditions.

Aviva's guide lists leaving the employer among the reasons cover stops, so some people look at a policy of their own; buying critical illness cover on its own and cover for the self-employed cover those routes. Readers who have already been turned down can start from life insurance with medical conditions, and the wider topic sits under health and underwriting.

To see how a personal critical illness quote might sit beside your work cover, send the form on this page.

What changes when you buy critical illness cover yourself?

Aviva's policy summary for Life Insurance+ (AL50001 02/2026) covers life cover and life with critical illness cover. It says: "Because the policy relates to your health, when you apply you’ll have to answer some questions about your health and lifestyle – fully, truthfully and accurately." If you do not, it says, it may amend or cancel your policy, or may not pay a claim.

The Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012 puts a duty of reasonable care on you when you answer, and lets an insurer act more firmly over a deliberate or reckless misstatement than a careless one. On a complaint about a refused claim, the Financial Ombudsman Service weighs how clear the insurer's questions were, how much care you took over them, and whether a correct answer would have changed what the insurer did. What you have to tell a life insurer and when a life insurer can refuse to pay set the rules out.

No medical questions or no medical examination?

Many searches for this mean cover without a doctor's examination or blood tests, which is a different thing. Legal & General's page on life insurance with no medical exam (dated 28 May 2026) says that when you apply "we ask questions about your health and lifestyle", and that the answers and the amount of cover decide "if a medical is required or not". Non-medical limits and life insurance without a medical explain how those work for life cover.

Aviva's over 50 life insurance is an example of a plan sold with no health questions or medical examination. It pays out on death, not on diagnosis of an illness, and if the death in the first 12 months was not accidental it pays back the premiums instead, so it is not critical illness cover. For a mortgage-related policy, mortgage protection with no health questions is the page to read.

Frequently asked questions

Does critical illness cover need a medical examination?

Not always. For its life insurance, Legal & General says your answers and the amount of cover decide whether a medical is needed.

Will my employer's critical illness cover ask for my medical history?

Under the Aviva and Canada Life guides above, most members need not give any. Legal & General asks for a member's declaration only for cover above its free limit. Your scheme's limits and exclusion wording are in its own documents.

Is critical illness cover on simpler terms available?

Plans sold with no health questions, such as Aviva's over-50s cover, pay out on death rather than on diagnosis of an illness. Whether any insurer would consider simpler terms for your age and history is for the broker to answer when they ring you back.

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