Life insurance - 10x earnings is a rip off!

[YukoandHiro]

I'm researching life insurance for me and DH. It seems financial advisors say go for coverage for 10x income. That's bloody extortionate. We simply can't afford it - the risk/reward ratio is way off, and we'd basically have to cut down our food/nursery bill etc just to pay for it. Which isn't going to happen.
How much have other parents on here gone for? I wasn't thinking of going for critical illness cover as it's not going to strike both of us at the same time and we are equal earners even with me on PT hours.
Feeling confused!

We have enough to cover our mortgage plus another 100k

We do have critical illness too as a very close friend of DH has just been diagnosed with a brain tumor, cannot work for the next 2 years or so and has 0 income, with no cover - they are struggling.

I have life insurance with critical illness cover and I made sure it would pay off my mortgage and car with a years take home pay.
I’m not a parent though, so didn’t have to account for child related expenses.

Our life insurance clears our mortgage, and leaves around £100,000 afterwards. Our cover is for £350,000 and we pay £34 a month on a combine policy. This included critical illness but not redundancy cover.

We went for level term policy enough to pay off our mortgage so around £350k for the next 20 or 25 years (I can't remember which). We each pay around £12 a month so in total about £25. The thinking is if one of us dies early on the money would pay off the mortgage and remaining parent would then only have to earn enough to cover other bills. If we both die then there would be 350k to pay off mortgage + another 350k to support the children until adulthood. If we die nearer the end of the policy then the money would not be needed for paying the mortgage but could help children with eg university costs. When we were looking into it were advised better to get 2 separate policies rather than a joint one + might as well get level term (so get same payout even if near end of policy). Ours does not include critical illness or redundancy cover but we have enough savings to cover 1-2 yrs if needed.

I pay £25 pm for £250k of life insurance cover.
I pay £15 pm for £25k critical illness cover

Both policies are progressive coverage i.e. inline with inflation so the premium increases a little per year (usually around +£1-£2) and my pay outs remain the same

I guess the issue here is my DH age (he's 13 years older than me). I'm looking at £200k level cover for 20 years, no critical illness, and it's coming to £36 a month best deal (only £9.50 of which is for me). We didn't have our dd young (she's only 2). Ah well, I guess I'll stump up for this to start with and maybe add critical illness for myself as I'm the higher earner pro rata

Do you have death in service as part of your benefits package, if you are employed? Do take that into account.

I don't know @Palavah - I'll have to look. Doubt it. We both work in a very unstable sector with a high turnover and it's an "in demand" are so contract perks are few.

We pay just under £200 a month for dh it would pay off our mortgage and give me 45k (tax free) a year for 30 years.

We pay £52 per month for £500k cover. We also have a policy attached to our mortgage to pay off the remainder, and a death in service benefit of £120k each. Our £500k policy is expensive because DH smokes occasionally, and rides a motorbike and scuba dives.

Shop around, there are some decent ones out there.

To add to that, I know it seems like a lot, but it's really worth it if the worst should happen. You don't want to be grieving and having to cut back, lose your home, change your DC's lifestyle. We want to make sure that if either of us die, the other can go part time and will still be able to pay for uni/house deposit for DS.

£36 a month isn't expensive!we had a quote for £90 a month for £250k over 30years