There are varying degrees of deafness from mild to moderate and severe. People with mild deafness tend to only experience difficulty in following speech especially in places with a lot of back ground noise.  Whereas people with moderate deafness will rely on a hearing aid to be able to follow speech.  A severely or profoundly deaf person, though they may have a hearing aid, will tend to have to rely a lot on lip-reading or some other forms of communication.  Critical illness insurance will only pay out on deafness if the insured is shown to have profound hearing loss that is expected to permanent. 

There is estimated to be about nine million people in the UK with hearing difficulties.  About 688,000 of these are severely or profoundly deaf.  The commonest form of deafness or hearing loss is due to ageing and is know as senile deafness or presbyacusis.  However, there are other causes of hearing loss for example, excessive exposure to loud noises such as music, machinery etc, infections, glue ear and ear wax that may affect the younger person.  In certain situations some causes of hearing loss or deafness will be reversible for example, ear wax, glue ear etc.  Whereas other causes of hearing loss may result in permanent profound deafness.  When this occurs the person has to adapt their lifestyle for example, learning new ways of communicating.  Critical illness insurance at this point in time would aid in supporting this change especially if it affects your occupation resulting in loss of income.

The outer ear collects the sounds and guides them into the inner ear to an organ known as the cochlea which receives the sounds as vibrations and converts them into electrical signals.  These electrical signals are perceived by brain as sounds, words etc.  Hearing loss can be as a result to damage or disruption to any of these parts, For example, ear wax or a foreign object may block the ear canal causing temporary deafness.  More permanent and severe loss may be down changes to the sensory cells of the cochlea due to age or possibly infection or damage to an area of the brain as a result of a head injury.

Hearing loss is measured using an instrument called an audiometer.  An audiometer will show what sort of hearing loss the person has and its possible cause.  There are three main types of audiometer;

• Pure Tone Audiometer – used for people capable of indicating what they can hear.
• Impedence Audiometer – used for people that are unable to indicate what they have heard. 
• Evoked Response Audiometer, this is generally used for screening babies.

Should you suffer from deafness and want to make a claim on your critical illness insurance, you will need a report from the specialist showing your level of hearing loss.  The insurance company will be looking for permanent and irreversible loss of hearing.  The hearing loss in any ear must be greater than 95 decibels across all frequencies measured using a pure tone audiogram.  Partial deafness or a treatable ear disease will not be covered by a critical illness insurance.