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Aircrew Life Insurance???

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Aircrew Life Insurance???

Old 5th Jan 2006, 22:15
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Aircrew Life Insurance???

Can anyone give me the name of a company who is willing to insure the life of Aircrew given the job we do these days and the risk involved etc. Having had a new member added to the family, I am having great difficulty trying to increase my cover without either : a) paying up to £100 a month or b) Sorry we have stopped insuring military Aircrew.
There must be someone with a competitive rate out there.
Thanks
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Old 5th Jan 2006, 22:21
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Have you tried Pax Plus?
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Old 5th Jan 2006, 22:54
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

IIRCC when I first took out life insurance you could claim back 90% of any excess that you paid because of your aircrew 'job', regardless of providor. It worked for me.
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Old 6th Jan 2006, 10:26
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Hi there. I am Missus ProStu. I work in insurance but must give the caveat that I'm not licensed to advise on this professionally!

Right, I shopped around for ours. I found that Norwich Union's Life and Critical Illness policies were reinsured by GE. Basically it works like this. Normal insurance office gives policies, but they lay off their risk to bigger pools of risks run by companies called reassurers. It's the reassurers who take the lions share of the risk and it's them that work out the "statistical risk" and drive the terms/ratings offered? I found out that GE had the philosophy that they didn't feel that rotary aircrew needed rating as there "hadn't been any crashes for years". Not exactly true but I wasn't going to argue with them. Hence we got life and critical cover with just an amendment to the "total permanent disability" part of the cover. If you're aircrew you'll always have that TPD part amended so it looked like a good deal. We did it through Tesco but I think NU have stopped underwriting Tesco's cover. Might be worth getting a broker to speak to NU though to find out if that is still their philosophy if you're a rotary mate.

Aircrew-wise generally though you can indeed claim 90% of any rating you have had applied directly due to your job (only aircrew, divers and bomb disposal though I think, so this doesn't apply to everyone). You would normally stump up the premium up front and once a year (ie in arrears) you apply through your pay office to get 90% of your year's extra premiums back?

Naafi are pretty clued up and I think they have tie ups with the best of the companies out there, plus they're clued up on military matters so they have seemed ok from anecdotal evidence from friends. I would steer clear of the small sum assured death benefit policies that the training establishments offer you on joining up though as they're usually massively more expensive than you can get on the high street. I believe the MOD are looking into this and will review their recommendations.

One thing I would say is use caution if you're going for critical illness cover on a reviewable premium basis? This means you have a fixed premium for 5 years but it can go orbital after that. I would only ever purchase guaranteed rate products as although they're more expensive they will gradually become comparatively less as inflation runs it down over the years and you'll get no surprises over what you're paying.

I was chatting to an aircrew chap the other day and he was only going to cover himself due to cost. I did point out that it was a good idea to cover his spouse as even if people would rally round it's still very useful to have a lump sum there to pay for nannies and stuff if the missus wasn't around any longer. Plus if you pay for life cover only then the cover is as cheap as chips these days. For £15pm you could normally get a nice sum. If you're healthy then it's worth keeping an eye on what you're paying as Term Assurance is the one place in insurance where the prices have been dropping year on year.

I'm not a broker and can't give what the regulators call "best advice" on insurance sales, but I know my stuff and if anyone wants something explained in plain English I'll do my best to help (just PM to ProStu).

(The value of your house may go up as well as down. Your house is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on loans secured against it, bla bla bla)
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Old 6th Jan 2006, 14:04
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Number Cruncher, had similar problems a while back and one of the guys at work put me in touch with a company called Services Insurance Solutions based in Mark Lane London. They also cover you if you are deployed to sandier climates.
Hope this helps.
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Old 6th Jan 2006, 16:12
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Just spoken to the missus and she said that currently if you're not under orders to deploy that most life insurers in the Uk are NOT putting exclusions on the life part of your life cover. It's usually the Critical Illness bit that has war exclusions. If you are under orders then it's a bit late and exclusions will often apply. Specialists might help then but it's much cheaper to sort your cover out well before you need it...
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Old 6th Jan 2006, 18:05
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

I have just recently taken out life cover for approx £60k to cover a mortgage, and with Legal & General they only loaded me about £7 per month on top of the premium, which I thought was not too bad, especially when you can claim back 90% as mentioned earlier.

When I made enquiries with our friendly admin/allowances staff to find out exactly how I go about claiming said refund, I was initially told that I was not entitled. After assuring said to**er that I was aircrew, he said he thought that I was on 5 Sqn, and therefore not eligible to claim as they do not fly (yet).

Unfortunately he was being 100% serious, and anyone from here will know exactly who I am talking about.

Roll on March 22nd when we get JPA, and redundancy notices are issued to all these people whose services will no longer be required.

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Old 6th Jan 2006, 18:24
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Just bear in mind that they only cover 90% to a set amount - something like £144000 of cover - shows how much mil aircrew are worth!
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Old 6th Jan 2006, 19:13
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Unhappy Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

90% of the extra "loaded premium" can be claimed for a maximum of 7 years I believe. Furthermore, the money is not refunded at base level but put into your pay when you claim. Slight snag ... the amount refunded is hit with a 40% tax deduction (certainly the vast majority of aircrew will be hit with this).
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Old 6th Jan 2006, 19:22
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

I have been using Standard Life for the last 4 years with a premium of only £17 per month for £125,000 of cover for myself and the wife. They were recommended to me by Mike Spinak (before his medical problems started) because they were the only company at the time who did not load peoplke for being aircrew. the policy has the usual lifestyle and family size increase clauses and I have increased it by 25K with the birth of my kid, with only a £4 per month increase in premium (it was £13 and is now £17 after my daughter was born).

If you want any more details of the policy name and contact numbers for the company, please PM me and I will send them to you.

Unfortunately I will not get a bonus from them for recommending them!

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Old 6th Jan 2006, 19:44
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

I too went through Michael Spinak and at the time he set me up with Norwich Union, who put no loading on me at all for being Rotary aircrew. Cost is about £19 for £150k joint life.
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Old 6th Jan 2006, 21:59
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Premiums are also very much age dependent, maybe that is why mine is so high (relatively speaking)

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Old 7th Jan 2006, 09:45
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Im with Norwich Union too.

Lots of forms to fill in but joint life, £225K for 20 yrs, 37 yr old, for about £24 a month aint bad.
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Old 8th Jan 2006, 11:31
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Critical Illness cover is a good idea if you can afford the extra premium. It effectively pays out should you come down with a CI such as cancer or have a heart attack etc. Given the risk we all stand of getting one of these, it's a small price to pay for having your mortgage covered etc. And you don't have to die getting it. Which is nice.

Generally you won't be covered in-theatre but you'll be covered to the airhead in theatre and from the airhead back to home. They're just worried about any nasties from DU shells and the like...

For example

£200K life and £100 CI, 37yo, 23yrs - approx £64pm thru NAAFI.

Yeah, it's more expensive, but worth a think...



...and all real emergencies will be preceeded by "was that you?"
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Old 8th Jan 2006, 14:11
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Originally Posted by Just This Once...
Does Mrs Jet know about the extra life cover you have taken out???
She took out the policy! And she got new knives for Chrimbo!
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Old 8th Jan 2006, 17:39
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Re: Aircrew Life Insurance???

Thanks for your help, especially Mrs ProStu. I am in a similar situation trying to get life cover, having recently bought a house. Initially I was quoted about £14pm PLUS a loading of £100pm by bright grey! Now exploring Standard Life which looks like it will work out fairly reasonably at about £19pm for joint life on £160K.
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Old 11th Mar 2006, 13:47
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Anyone got any good pointers for insurance for FJ pilots. Drawing a blank without a monster loading for job type at the moment. Broker says he can't find any companies which don't load (even those mentioned) which makes me slightly suspicious....
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Old 11th Mar 2006, 14:48
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Old 11th Mar 2006, 17:28
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Since saddling myself with a mortgage again last summer we had to increase our insurance and I had three months of 2ing and froing with the quote me happy plonkers at NU. After losing some medical forms and sending forms back twice they then declined the insurance as I was in the RN and liable for deployment!? My IFA was dumbstruck with them and has now put me on to l and g who will do 200,000 for £34 pm. Interested to hear about other pruners who are insured with NU, maybe they have changed their policy.


As an aside we had Personal Medical Insurance with NU for a while and they eventually put so many exclusions on our youngest who has no reason for it we had to cancel the policy as it was getting so he would only be covered for swamp fever or the like. We are now with BUPA with a forces discount which knocks spots off the previous policy.

PM me if you want any more info.
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Old 11th Mar 2006, 20:59
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Thumbs up Beware the small print!

One thing you might want to check if you've got any of these commercial policies is the small print about deploying on Ops. Most of them will specify that you're not covered unless you inform them before you go and where you're going. In my own cynical view, this will then be a precursor to loading your premium for the period that you're away! If you 'forget' to inform them and the worst should happen, your nearest and dearest may have a few snags getting the piso bunch to pay out.

Personally, I went with the PAX+ scheme. It pays out a reasonable lump sum, irrespective of where I am at the time, I can cover the family and the lump sum doesn't decrease in line with the remaining balance on my mortgage, which my old commercial policy was doing. They've also introduced a Critical Illness cover, albeit not covering quite as many illnesses as some commercial schemes. (And no - I'm not advertising them, I'm just happy with my cover)
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