Life Insurance For The Stay At Home Mother!

Yes, I know that there are stay at home dads also, but this run of posts is about women and life insurance. Honestly, the title of stay at home mom is a bit of a misnomer. It should be more like “stay at home, do more jobs than than is humanly possible, while simultaneously raising children slave”. I only throw in the slave because I am honestly not hearing a lot of chat about the size of paychecks these moms are hauling to the bank.

I remember seeing this article last year, that while an eye opener, really didn’t surprise me that much. I have always been amazed at everything a stay at home mom can accomplish in a day and the length of the day that is required to get it all done.

So, given what it would take to financially replace a wife, does carrying a token $50,000 or $100,000 policy really make sense? It used to be that insurance companies really stuck to the rule that they would only insure a homemaker for half of what the husband was insured for. One of the crazy things about that rule was that it didn’t matter if there were 6 children or just 1. It didn’t matter the ages or the health. Tell me the loss is the same if you are comparing  a severely handicapped child  left behind to a healthy child. It also didn’t take into account that the husband might very well be under insured. I am working with more and more companies that are willing to look at the mother under a different financial set of rules.
The are plenty of ways to substantiate the economic loss of a homemaker and if that adds up to more than 50% of the husband’s insurance, so be it. Another item that I think should be considered when adding up what the insurance needs are, is one year of the husbands salary. Why factor his salary into your insurance? Just my idea of the kind of thing that insurance can provide the opportunity for. If the insurance includes a one year salary replacement for the husband, especially when the children are younger, the husband could actually take a sabbatical and spend a year with his children at probably the most needy time in their life.

Bottom line. Let’s get real about your role as stay at home moms, or mothers who work part time and still have to do all of the work to keep the home front afloat. If you run into a situation where an insurance company tries to limit the amount of insurance, find an independent agent who can show you ways over that hurdle. Don’t let your husband’s underinsurance keep you from properly insuring yourself.