That's good information to tell employees and employers, Marty Traynor, vice president of voluntary benefits at Mutual of Omaha in Omaha, Neb., told Benefits Selling earlier this year.

"We educate workers about how critical illness policies can help prevent draining their savings," he said. "That's a good selling tip, and an important point to cover in enrollment meetings."

Another reason critical illness insurance is important for consumers, experts say, is because high-deductible options for health insurance coverage are becoming more common, thanks to the growing cost of more traditional lower deductible policies.

The so-called Cadillac Tax provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which will impose monetary penalties on providers when annual premiums exceed a threshold — penalties that will inevitably be passed on to employers and beneficiaries — will turn the once optional into a necessity for millions. And that could add another $1,000 or more to those out-of-pocket expenses.

Tom Gilligan, national sales manager for voluntary benefits for Sun Life in Wellesley, Mass., said he sees a rise coming in critical care insurance sales because of these very reasons.

"I see critical illness coverage steadily increasing in popularity," Gilligan said. "I don't see it taking off and blowing the roof off or anything, but I would say a steady increase in popularity, because what's going to happen is deductibles under health care plans are going to continue to rise. So as core health care plans cover less, there are going to be larger gaps in financial exposure for people. They're going to realize they need protection for the big ticket events that happen to them in their lives, and that's what critical illness does."

Critical care insurance pays out on many seriously high-dollar catastrophic illnesses. A Sun Life spokesperson said cancer, heart attack, stroke, major organ failure, end-stage heart failure, coronary artery bypass disease, benign brain tumor, severe burns, paralysis and coma are all covered events.

A family policy would include coverage for children, and pay out in the event of cerebral palsy, complex congenital heart disease, cystic fibrosis, type 1 diabetes or muscular dystrophy.

Professional services company Towers Watson said its research confirms employers are ready to add critical illness insurance to the menu of insurance coverage they will be offering in the next few years. The company's recently released 2013 Voluntary Benefits and Services Survey found that 35 percent of employers offer critical care insurance already, that 8 percent more will add it to their available VBS in 2014, and an additional 13 percent more are considering it for fiscal year 2015.

Spreading the word

But employers need to know how to get the word across about what will be available, and Beth Grellner, health and group benefits leader for St. Louis and co-chair of Towers Watson's voluntary benefits initiative, said employers need to tailor their delivery to the relevant audience demographic.

"[Baby boomers] are very used to kind of a classroom-style, paper-based receipt of information," she said. "They want to come in, they want to have somebody kind of educate them about things, they like to do group meetings, receive the information, and have the opportunity to react to it, ask questions."

"The Gen Xers we're kinda like, 'OK that's great. I don't really have time for your meeting. Just give it to me and I'll figure it out myself.'

"And then Gen Y, they're very in-tune with being able to figure things out from a technology standpoint, and to be able to multitask and consider a variety of things all at one time," Grellner said.

Brokers can help tailor that information, too, during open enrollment.

And October is Critical Illness Awareness Month, a perfect opportunity for brokers to talk about the product, experts say.

Also read:

• Critical (illness) thinking
• Demand rising for critical illness policies