to expect parents to have life insurance as a matter of course?

[probablyoverinsured]

Is it not the first thing you think about when you first hold your newborn? How can I best care for this little one? What do I need to do/sacrifice to ensure their welfare? in any circumstances?

I appreciate you can't be insured for every eventuality, and with the best will in the world, you can think you have taken out adequate insurance, and in the event it doesn't actually pay out for some reason or other.

But it's about £2 a week, in most cases - surely this is factored into the cost of providing for a child, when you do your calculations? I expect there are a few that can't afford it, but most can.

I am just amazed to hear of someone recently, really struggling, with no life insurance payout for the children, because there was no policy.

Am I living in a fool's paradise? Don't most parents have life insurance? Am I just showing my ignorance? Why wouldn't a parent have life insurance? Do you? if not, why not?

I’m paying one that’s around the price you state and I was about 34 when it was taken out.

15 years later (two years ago) it was £41 for a shorter term. Both 200k I think.

some people say they cant afford it, or they have death in service cover through work, so don't need it, which is all fair enough.

But there are certainly people who can afford it that haven't bothered, and I see the consequences at school when a child is bereaved of a parent - it happens multiple times a year in an average secondary school

and one comment, recently, justifying it as "because we were young and not thinking about death" sort of misses the point, as it's when your young and healthy that you can take a cheap long term insurance policy out.

I have life and critical illness through work and have done since way before I had kids.

However I just think it isn't on some people's radars, if you don't know about it or what it is then that's what happens. Also £££ mine certainly is £2 a week and plenty of people don't have £2 week. Same with pensions.

This accounts for the companies like Polly or the one fronted by Razor Ruddock. Do you work for them op?

A friend of mine (without kids) bought a house a couple of weeks ago. Her partner isn't on the mortgage as he can't be and he wouldnt be able to afford it if she died. She hasn't found a life insurance policy that will accept her with her pre-existing. Certainly not one she can afford.

I suspect there are loads of people with problems not dissimilar.

And you come along and tell them how dreadful they are as parents for not protecting their kids / partner just in case something happens.

The reality is its unlikely even then though.

We have life insurance but not critical coverage. Its only until we are 50 though. The mortgage won't be paid off by then. DS will only be 18. It could leave me and DS up shit creek and we felt critical coverage was a con because of the number of reasons they won't pay up for on policies.

@probablyoverinsured

I can't even get a company to quote me. I just tried.

What do you suggest I do?

I actually do have a disability but not something that affects my life expectancy (I am hard of hearing).

No long term health conditions.

Obviously you knew that or you wouldn't ask. But not everyone who has declared on here that it costs them £££ has said they have a disability or health condition, so just putting the alternative perspective out there- it isn't costly for everyone and some people certainly can get life insurance at an affordable price.

We don't have it.

DH is covered by 'death in service' at his work, and my pension would pay out a lump sum if I died -although not a particularly large one at this point.

We have paid off the mortgage.

We were quoted over £80 a month (that was the best quote!) - in our 40s, non-smokers, relatively healthy.

It may be that we need to move to a bigger house in the near future, which would require us to take out a mortgage again, in which case we would have a rethink.

These are the first sort of payments people drop when they are broke. Sometimes people are too busy dealing with the problems in front of them for preparation for possible future problems. Poverty leads to short term thinking and planning, by necessity.

To put it another way, If you are fucked now and don’t have the time, energy and resources to unfuck the now, then you definitely don’t want to be wasting your resources on some possible future situation that may need unfucking.

Also, people don’t like to think about being disabled or dead in future, or their partner being disabled or dead in the future. They can’t contemplate that money would make that situation any easier (though in reality it would - I went through almost losing my partner to cancer last year - who has no life insurance -and I know just how stressful the financial implications of illness can be).

Lastly, some of us don’t have any earning power worth protecting.

When I got my mortgage (18 years ago) it was only compulsory for me to take out buildings and content insurance. However, I also took out redundancy, sickness, critical illness and life insurance. I pay £50 per month for the redundancy, sickness, critical illness and life insurance. I also have death in service of 2.5 x my annual salary. It gives me peace of mind.

£2 per week? That depends on how much your mortgage is.
life insurance is generally for the amount outstanding on your mortgage - if you don’t have a mortgage what amount do you propose?

I think its like with most things in life, those people who need it most are in the least able position to have it.

Brilliantly summarised.

I'm another who can't get LI or CI because of various health conditions - ones that will almost certainly lead to me not making old bones, but I hope I can hang on until my DS is an adult.

Do you know how good it makes people feel to know that no insurer considers their life worth insuring, essentially because of the reason you are far more likely to need the insurance?

And then, on top of that, being told that you are irresponsible, stupid, reckless, not a loving, caring parent, add whatever other insults you like - it's not the nicest feeling to be had. Not just on threads like this, but the annual mailshots that turn on the emotional blackmail and stress the 'come on, it's time to be a GOOD parent now' message from companies that would instantly change their mind and turn me down point blank if I applied and they saw my medical record. They would then doubtless take me straight off their mailing list - not because of any compassion for me, but to save themselves a few quid in wasted printing and postage, of course.

Where does that leave us, then? What's the point in challenging attitudes like that? All that people can do is backtrack and say "Oh, I didn't mean YOU!" as if that makes it better. As PP said, disabled people are parents too; I shouldn't have to point it out, but we're also people too - and we love our kids just as much as able-bodied, fully healthy parents do.

Likewise with very poor people (even if able-bodied and healthy) who get the same criticism levelled at them. It's the same when it comes to pensions - how utterly stupid you must be if you want to put food on the table and shoes on your kids' feet now rather than store your pitiful funds away for a tomorrow that may never come.

By all means publicise it to those who may qualify and be interested/able to afford it; but enough already with the presumptuous, unthinking, uncaring, ableist, poor-bashing, sneery attitudes that come from a position of privilege - blaming and shaming people for 'making the choice' not to do something that they simply cannot possibly do.

I agree, I have had health insurance for many years, long before I had children or own home. It’s there in case something happens to you. Anything can happen, you could be hit by a car, die of a sudden undiagnosed illness, cancer you don’t have to be old and full of ailments to need one. Funerals cost money and your family will be the ones paying for it if anything happens to you. Look at Nicola Bully, no one would dream of something like what’s happened to happen, but it has, now someone has set up a go fund me page for her children and although I am very sympathetic to her and her family my thoughts are, that it was hers and her partners responsibility to set up insurance policies to protect their children in case something happened to them, not for other to pay to look after them.

Im a SAHM, if anything happened to me my DH would have to take care of 3 grieving children while trying to work and cover the bills. My life insurance would allow him to pay off our mortgage and cover the cost of taking time off work to look after our children. The same with his, he has a policy that will cover the mortgage and a separate one that would allow me to continue to be a SAHM for a decent period of time before I would need to look for work and childcare.

DH and I have only recently sorted out our life insurance and our DD is nearly 3. It wasn't a condition of our mortgage but we spoke to someone during our remortgage process and put it through with them. I believe ours is £34 a month for £250k each until age 70. On top of this we have death in service from our jobs, and I pay for critical illness via mine as a taxable benefit (£150k me, £100k DH). Essentially, if we were to both kick the bucket my DD would probably be close to a millionaire if everything paid out (we are anything but!).

Insurance though just doesn't fit into some people's budgets. It's all well me saying 'it's only £30' but that's because I am fortunate enough to have the disposable income to say that. I am very well aware that there are loads of people out there who are struggling to afford food or energy, let alone life insurance!

Life Insurance is one of those things that unfortunately doesn't benefit those who really need it as they can't afford it in the first place.

My RA shouldn't shorten my life expectancy but I still can't just get standard cheap cover.

I got turned down by quite a few and the ones that would were £££

This!! Well said.

Who knew, I apparently have death in service with my pension - thought that was only for people with dangerous jobs! 😄

I'd like critical illness cover but that's expensive, life insurance is cheapest but I don't need that, I've settled for income protection only

Im going to agree with you OP. I think everyone thinks it wont happen to them so it slips to the bottom of the list. However, last year I know of two healthy young people who died. One's heart failed suddenly and completely unexpectedly, the other was killed in a car crash when they were hit by a drunk driver.

Neither had wills or life insurance, they shouldnt have needed them as there was no reason to suspect the worst would happen. It has made an already awful situation worse. We were totally guilty and hadnt done it so immediately sorted it all out. If this thread prompts someone to sort it out then its worth it.

Well I have type 1 diabetes, well controlled, yet my insurance calculation was almost £300/month.
I have done other things to make sure my children are provided for.

We took out a joint policy for £100,000 on a level term basis years back to be able to cover our mortgage plus other costs on basis It’s about £5/month because we started at 23 to pay over 30 years. We changed to one for £250k on reducing balance basis in late 30s and that was £18/month. It covers most of our current mortgage and we both also have work benefits. In general if you take out a long term policy when young it’s not massively expensive. £200-300/year seems worth finding if at all possible for the security provided. I wish we’d taken £300k on level term for 35 years back in our mid 20s as at time that would have been less than £15/month and it would have lasted our whole mortgage paying time and left us with extra cover in later years.

It was £50 a month each for us, 15 years ago when we were in our early 30s with no health conditions. That was a lot of money for us at the time. It was one of the recommended cheap policies at the time.

£2 a week. Thats laughable. Cover would be farcial and probably wouldn't have covered our mortgage on our old house at todays prices, never mind our current house.

Sorry but I think this thread is MASSIVELY insensitive. And I HAVE cover.

@probablyoverinsured so you're of working age (in a school) and you were told you had to take life cover and critical illness cover with your mortgage. You were scammed.

Rather than sitting smugly judging the dead parents of pupils in your school, why don't you go and get some financial education yourself?

This is a seriously shitty thread. And it's ableist.

Where do you suggest the £720 per month comes from and that was 25 years ago.
If you haven’t got it and there is nothing to cut down on then you can’t afford it.

People told me to save for a pension which I did reluctantly. Money that could have helped me at the time went into the pension

I checked on my pension pot recently.

It is £0

Raided by a company I worked for years ago to pay off its debts and to stave off bankruptcy for a few more months.

Yes you can pay into a life insurance policy the issue is whilst I know they work for others, they don’t work for me and I could see paying dhs £720 per month life insurance policy and when he dies there would be £0 payout because there is always a loophole.

im 29, never smoked. dont drink and am completely healthy with no family health issues known. Mine is £34 a month... thats actually a lot for most people

We are young (late 30's) healthy non smokers, and I cant get it that low, mine is around £25 per month for just life insurance, and we got critical illness for my husband, as he earns more than me and we couldn't afford both, and that is £65 per month.