Hello there. Well, if it were me I'd stay away from Pax as they're more there to offer lump sums if you hurt yourself, with limited payouts if you die? If you want the best of all worlds and to try to keep your premiums down I would go one of the following options?
a) Cover both of you for Life and Critical Illness for the whole mortgage but on a decreasing basis, ie the cover amount will run off at the same rate as your mortgage. This keeps the cost down as the sum is getting smaller as you get older hence the lower premium. This means your mortgage is paid off should either of you go but you'd still need to cover the bills. You could put 3 months worth of bills in a rainy day account somewhere to cover that.
b) Some policies offer the option of having the Critical Illness cover only on one life. This would keep the cost down. You can also have the death cover for the whole mortgage but choose to have a lower limit for the CI so that you get to pay off a chunk of your mortgage early (plus you should have your disability pension). This could allow you to take a lesser job and still cover the mortgage payments. If you went on to die (hopefully not!) then the residual life cover would fully pay off the rest of the mortgage.
The loading is specifically for your job but the normal premium only differs by your age, your sex and whether you smoke or not (oh and if you're fat and drink too much that won't help). Often the prices go up as you hit the big birthdays so if you have any looming get it sorted before! The hike from 39 to 40 s quite notable for instance.
Should mention again that you really are better off with Guaranteed Premium Critical Illness so that you know what you're paying all the way through. Some policies have guaranteed premiums and some have reviewable ones. Reviewable means that you have it fixed for the first 5 years then it's amended depending on the insurers opinions on mortality trends and losses over that period. Also ,if you've had any high blood pressure readings, if you're overweight, smoke or have a poor family history then Critical Illness premiums can hit the roof, so have a think about this beforehand.
There are loads of variations on what you can do and your choice should depend on whether your spouse works or not or whether you're the main wage earner?
So... it's worth checking with Norwich Union to see if they still give standard terms to rotary crew. If you look on the internet you should be able to get a number to call? Otherwise go and have a look at the other supermarket offerings and see if any of them say "underwritten by Norwich Union". The direct prices from supermarkets are often right up there with the cheapest. Naafi are good too (anecdotally) and they came up with decent terms (albeit with loadings for rotary ac) and cheapest around for male mid 30's non smoker.
Things you need to ask when getting a quote..
a) is there a war exclusion on the life cover? (most should say no to this). This means that you will be covered in the event of your death whereever you are.
b) if you're going for Critical Illness ask about war exclusions for this. They might exclude all the accident related claims like paralyis, loss of limb etc. Also, as aircrew(military or civvie) expect to get an amended Total Permanent Disability definition. What this means in Plain English is that instead of your policy paying out the full sum assured if you couldn't fly, that instead you will have to be significantly disabled instead, for example unable to climb stairs on your own, wash yourself and get dressed etc (and not just after Happy Hour!!)
So, once you've tracked down the cheaper cover with the least exclusions you can reclaim any loading for your occupation. The insurers only apply a charge for the first 7 yrs of the contract, and you can get 90% of it back annually in arrears. (there may be a maxima on this so I'd check). If you give up flying altogether you can write to the insurer and ask them to reassess you (not all do this so check before taking out the cover). If you go down the airlines route then most airline pilots aren't rated (so you might still be able to apply to have any loading removed), but will still have their definitions amended on the total disablement part.
You probably are best off looking at the top providers first, the good ones being Friends Provident, Norwich Union, Scottish Provident, Scottish Equitable, Standard Life, Royal Liver. These are big companies that shouldn't go bust, and should be paying out on policies for years to come.
I think you might be best off speaking to Naafi and asking for their cheapest joint life Decreasing Term Assurance mortgage cover (with or without CI, if you get them to quote for both then you can weigh up the cost difference), that ideally has no loading for rotary, and has no war exclusion on the life cover part. If you have a monthly outlay in mind they can multiquote to see what they can get you for what you want to pay?
Sorry this has rambled on but insurance is a pretty big subject. Once you've got some quotes if you get any more questions that you want an independent view on then just mail again. Bear in mind that brokers generally are only paid commission so they only get paid on what they sell, not on giving advice! Some will look at 100 companies prices, some will look at 5, ask about that too!
Hope this assists.
Mrs ProfStude
I must repeat that she's not an IFA and is not registered by the FSA and as such these are purely her opinions - thinking out loud, if you will. Please don't take her words as Gospel and don't come running if you don't/can't get what you want.
I asked her earlier about "notice to move" and what constitutes it in the eyes of the insurance industry. She stated that if you know you are or deploying or expect your Sqn/Unit to in the near future, that counts as "under orders" and few companies will touch you. But then if your deploymeny is not on the long-cast then you could argue the case. It's a sticky one and the onus would be on the insurance company to PROVE you knew you were under orders.
Bad livin'
The above covers most of the policy conditions. The cost is probably about £20 per £100k of cover per person for life and CI - fixed premium (though this may have finished) and reducing throughout to cover mortgage repayments only. Any more, please PM me and I'll see what I can do, but Mrs ProfStude is in a exam frenzy at the moment and it may take some while for a reply.