SAHM: Do YOU Have life insurance?

[MomInCalifornia]

This article made me think about SAHM's and life insurance. I have always encouraged my friends who stay home to purchase life insurance, not only for their husband, but also for themself. This article does a good job at showing the monitary value of a mom.

When we were pregnant with our first child, my husband uped his life insurance dramatically, and we purchased a plan for me as well. I am insured enough for my husband to hire a full time, in home, top of the line caregiver for our children, as well as enough to allow him to take as much time off work as needed (depending on the age of the children), so anywhere from a month to a 4 or 5 years.

So, SAHM, do you have life insurance?

[MomInCalifornia]

I just realized I forgot to put the link to the article I was talking about...it was the one we were all discussing the other day about a SAHM financial value to her family.

[Greaseball]

Right now none of us have it...but I'm thinking it might make the most sense to get it just for me and not dh, if we can't afford to get it for both of us. If dh died I would at least get social security. If I died, he'd get nothing.

[NaomiLorelie]

I have a policy through DH's company. Actually they have a funky way of doing the policies in which the employee can only raise the insurance amount a certain amount for each year they work so my policy is actually worth more. DH would be able to afford child-care, maid services, etc. for at least a year maybe two. Long enough to get everything figured out.

[Patchfire]

We both have it. Actually, at the moment, I'm insured for more than he is, because there was some funky stuff with his bloodwork and we can't afford the premiums for the amount we'd like him to have. Ideally, we'd be insured for the same amount, which would be enough to pay off our mortgage, pay off our student loan debt, and invest the rest in order to be able to live off the interest (hopefully), so that whoever was left could still be a fulltime care provider for the kids. Hopefully it never comes to that - but we both feel better having *both* of us insured. My life insurance is really just for dd and ds, though, in my head.

[TiredX2]

We are both insured, me for about 1/2 of what he is. It would be enough to pay off our mortgage (which would allow him to use that money to pay for care/education for the kids instead of the mortgage) plus some extra to just take it easy for a while (like 12 weeks of FMLA with a vacation).

Additionally, we wanted to provide more for the guardians of our children if we should both die.

[mama_nomad]

hubby is worth a million and i am worth a half million. i think if anything happened to either of us, i couldn't handle grieving and suddenly having to worry about money and likewise if i died my hubby would want to be witht he kids as much as possible and have the best care for them and not have to downsize the home we love and have built memories in.
a friend of mine died in march at 31 totally suddenly and his wife was left to raise their 18 mo. old and take over the business, as he was the breadwinner and their was no insurance policy. it's just too much and not worth the risk. both mom and dad should be taken care of if tragedy strikes. it's the responsible thing to do. i guess if the kids were older and in school it would be doable, but we plan on homeschooling so we would want to afford a tutor and dh would want to travel with kids or do whatever to help them grieve my loss before going back to work.

[artgoddess]

700K for DP and 300K for me. He'd have to apy for childcare if something happen to me.

[onlyzombiecat]

no life insurance

[sunnmama]

My policy is half of dh's.

[eclipse]

dh is insured for 3 or 4 x his annual salary (can't remember which), and I was too until I was laid off last year. Now he has a policy on me through his work, but they only ofer $25k policies for spouses.

[shelbean91]

We do, but only through dh's work. If he quits or gets laid off, we have nothing. We have it for both of us and the kids as well.

[TwinMom]

We have life insurance through dh's work. I think his is $1 million and mine is half a million. I would like to increase his, but he keeps putting it off because he has to have a physical to do it and he just doesn't want to take the time. I need him to take the time to do it 'cause I don't want to have to work if he keels over suddenly!

Okay, maybe it's wrong, but I can't be the only woman who occasionally secretly thinks about what she could do with the life insurance money if her husband died. Right? Tell me I'm not the only one! Not that I'd trade him for anything, and if he died I'd be devastated, but I do think about it sometimes.

[Shenjall]

Funny I should find this thread as dh and I just got a joint policy. Its half mill each and if we both die, 1 mill.

I highly recommend getting it! After we signed the papers, I slept sooooo good! Its so nice to not have to worry.

Twinmom - no worries, dh joked about what we would do with the money if one of died. As in, "honey, your life would mean a 3rd story loft" or "I'd miss you but the dining room extension with the bay window would ease my pain" :LOL

[Greaseball]

Is it common for insurers to decide the wife is "worth" only half?

I don't think it's wrong to think about how you will spend the money. My dh is 17 years older than I am so if all goes according to nature's plan, he will die first. If we can afford ins for him, you bet I'm gonna spend it.

[mags]

Yes. If something were to happen to me, my DH would probably have to hire a live in caretaker. We do not live close enough to family that they can help out easily and his job is really specialized. He cannot just up and relocate closer to family, in order for them to help out. On top of that, he does NOT have set hrs at work, he is on call 50% of the yr too, so even if he is home, but on call, he needs to have standby childcare in case he gets called in, therefore, it makes childcare REALLY tricky, esp if he would get called in for an emergency in the middle of the night or wknd, etc.. So, my life insurance would go towards childcare costs, b/c that would be a pretty big burden to him.

[MomInCalifornia]

Originally Posted by Greaseball

Is it common for insurers to decide the wife is "worth" only half?

I don't think it's wrong to think about how you will spend the money. My dh is 17 years older than I am so if all goes according to nature's plan, he will die first. If we can afford ins for him, you bet I'm gonna spend it.

I'm not sure how this works all the time, but we picked the ammount we wanted to be insured for, not the insurance company.

We determined the ammount by figuring out how much I would need to pay off our mortgage, pay for the kids education, and continue to live as a SAHM till the kids were out of school. We also figured I would be able to invest the money and live off of interest. That's how we determined my husbands ammount. My ammount was not quite as calculates, just more estimates. If I were to die, the "plan" is my mom would care for the kids after Ben went back to work, but if for some reason she was not able to (death, injury, old age etc) my insurance would cover a full time care taker, or him taking a few years off work. I suppose he could pay off the morntgae, but I don't htink it would be as necessary.

After we decided the ammounts we wanted, we submitted a bunch of paperwork to the insurance company, they came to our house and did a physical on both of us, took blood work etc, and we were approved.

We did a 20 year term, so we are good until then. We picked 20 years because by then the kids will be grown, and our needs will have changed.

[simply me]

Hi ladies...

We have life insurance on all of us as well AFLAC accident/cancer etc. We ahve alot on hubby, a fair amount on me & then about 20 grand for each child. In addition to what we took out personally dh's job also offers insurance on us all. I don't put his added from his job into our numbers though. Its jsut an extra but since i don't pay for it i tuck it in the back of my mind.

We also have the AFLAC insurance for accidents, hospital stays cancer etc. It has definatly helped us out of some jams.

[MomInCalifornia]

Question for those of you who said your children have life insurance. Can you explain this to me. I have always thought of life insurance as a way to pay for our current standard of living should one of us die, or to go to the childrens gauardians for our children if we to both die.

What is the advantage of having life insurance on a child, as a child is not contributing to the family finances?

[shaywyn]

We both have insurance, the same amount. It's not a lot, we hope to purchase more eventually.

As for insuring our children, our policy offered a small amount of insurance for each child for free, so we signed up. Even though it is so hard to even think about. The amount would cover expenses only and being a very poor family......... Ugh, I can hardly bear to type about this subject, but you kwim.