A system and method for handling critical events in service gateways. Configuration information is received in a service gateway, the configuration information defining a redundancy set having a master redundancy state and a standby redundancy state, the configuration information including one or more redundancy policies associated with the redundancy set, a service redundancy policy defining changes to be made in a service when a transition occurs in the state of the redundancy set. The service gateway receives further configuration information defining events that cause a transition between the master and standby redundancy states in the redundancy set. In response to detecting a redundancy event in the service gateway, the service gateway transitions the redundancy set, within the service gateway, from the master redundancy state to the standby redundancy state, modifies a first signal-route state associated with the redundancy set and modifies the service based on the service redundancy policy.