Life insurance/critical illness

[firstlittleone]

Help please!
DH and I are 28 & 26, we have a DS who is 5 months old and a mortgage of around £210k. We both get death in service and full sick pay for 6 months.. any advice on how much cover I should take out?
I’ve tried to speak to a financial advisor but they always seem to make it so much more confusing

You need enough to pay off the mortgage, plus take into account how much you or your husband would need without the other one's wage. Does one of you earn a lot more? Plus think of extra childcare costs.

The policy is usually for the duration of the mortgage. You can have a fixed term one where the payout stays the same or a reducing one where the payout gets less each year as the mortgage reduces but the monthly payment will reduce as well. . Obviously the fixed term one is more expensive. You can add critical illness cover but again that will put the monthly premium up and depends on whether you can comfortably afford that each month.

You should also look at income protection insurance.

And you need a better financial adviser if the ones you've talked to are making things confusing. Try https://www.vmis.co.uk/personal-protection (I have no personal connection with them but an organisation I do work with picked one of their advisers to front a campaign and I know they will have done good due diligence on the company).

Life insurance to cover funeral costs, mortgage, outstanding debt, then look at what amount you will need to live on until your dc are no longer dependent on you.

Be cautious about relying on death in service, a common illness like cancer means sick pay runs out quickly and can have multiple treatment rounds, you may not be capable of work or have diminished capacity. Its also not unheard of for people to be sacked when well enough to return to work. In these instances critical illness cover can be really valuable, especially when you're young as it tends to be lower cost.

Well done for getting this all sorted out now!