Insurance policies protecting the loan taken to go to flight school?

[LTWannabe]

Hello there!

I'm currently a 23 year old UK STEM student with 1 year of my degree left and like many have wanted to be an airline pilot since little. I started looking into everything when I was about 16 and my plan was to first sort out a backup career by attending Uni, working for a year or two upon graduation to get some experience and then aggressively apply for all of the airline cadet schemes through the FTO's. I'm quite set on going integrated instead of modular and want to start no later than when I'm 26/27.

Should I manage to pull all of this off and get onto a scheme, the only way I'd be able to fund the training would be by taking out one of those huge loans against a UK property.

I'm obviously very weary of doing this as I wouldn't want any homes being repossessed should I die or become ill during the training. Does anyone have any general information or info about insurance policies that would protect this kind of thing from happening?

[BittenEdges]

Hi LTwannabe,

There are some companies out there who will provide cover specifically for trainee pilots for loss of medical reasons or death during training. I believe BALPA financial services offer such a product, CTC have a known affiliation with Paul Jones Insurance Specialists whom I used during my training. Link provided below for your research purposes.

I hope that helps! As I say some more providers probably exist but I think this type of policy is still too niche to be able to win you a cute meerkat toy for comparing them, if you catch my drift!

http://www.pjis.co.uk/26/CTC_and_Trainee_Cadet_Pilots/

[LTWannabe]

That's exactly what I'm looking for, thanks a lot.

I take it you went through a similar route to what I'm aiming to do?

Did you do a cadetship with an airline through CTC while securing one of the big loans too?

[BittenEdges]

I was 25 when I applied for a part sponsored airline scheme at CTC mate so yes sounds like we were in fairly similar boats! I had been working in finance since leaving college to save as much money as possible but still needed to borrow part of the course cost.

Unfortunately the big Spanish bank said ¡NO! at a fairly late stage of the game so I had to rally funds from various family and I took insurance to protect their interests. Glad that was of some use!

[LTWannabe]

Thanks for the info, its reassuring for what I want to do. Any idea why that bank declined? Was it just credit or something?

How long have you been with the airline now?

Sorry for the interrogation, I'm just quite intrigued!

[BittenEdges]

The bank never said why, but I believe it was based on credit score of one of my family members who they insisted had to be a guarantor for some reason! Quite stressful with 2 weeks before course start!

Been with airline since last June and flying line since September. :)

[LTWannabe]

I can only image the stress of that happening 2 weeks before.

Was the loan secured against a property as well as a guarantor :confused:?

I was under the impression it was just a a UK property that they needed.

Glad it's all worked out for you though, how are you finding everything about your new profession?

[BittenEdges]

It might have changed but certainly when I applied to BBVA they wanted guarantors as well as a charge against the property (which incidentally had nearly double the free equity compared to the amount I was looking to borrow). I worked as a CeMAP qualified mortgage advisor for 7 years so had a pretty good idea about how a secured loan works yet they were making me jump through so many hoops it seemed a bit ridiculous. I heartily don't recommend any dealings with them if you can help it but they have the trainee pilot market quite well sewn up. Treat with caution and take what they say with a pinch of salt, would be my advice.

Yeah life now is brilliant thank you very much. It's all I've ever wanted to do for a living and it's better than I imagined it would be to be honest. Hope you get there too! :ok: