Insuring Your Stay-at-Home Spouse

Just because your stay-at-home spouse doesn’t bring home a paycheque every week; doesn’t mean the job they do is not worth insuring.  In fact, if tragedy strikes and they get sick or die, you would be the one left scrambling to pay for the funeral and other expenses during a time of grieving.

A stay-at-home spouse typically accomplishes a lot more than you would think during the average work week.  A 2011 Salary.com survey determined the average stay-at-home mom works approximately 100 hours per week and typically “earns” $115,000 a year.  The stay-at-home spouse works several unpaid jobs including chef, housekeeper, driver and daycare teacher.

Considering they do so much, a realistic life insurance policy figure would be around $1 million.  Lower amounts like $100,000, invested at today’s low rates won’t last long, especially if it has to fund all the jobs your spouse does.

Based on your family’s specific needs; the type and duration of life insurance will vary, it can range from a 20 year term policy to cover your spouse while your children are still at home, to a whole life policy that will have more predictable premiums.

While life insurance is a great financial tool to help protect your family’s wealth in case of death, if your stay-at-home spouse develops a critical illness that prevents them from taking care of the household, you could still be in trouble.  While most insurance companies won’t cover non-working spouses for disability insurance, they can still purchase critical illness (CI) insurance for protection.

In the event of a critical illness; cancer for example, the tax-free lump-sum payment from a CI policy would help pay for someone to take your spouse to and from treatments, perform regular household duties and watch the children during his/her recovery.

Insuring your stay-at-home spouse is just as important as insuring the breadwinner of the family.  With the right combination of life and CI insurance your family will be prepared for the worst.  Furthermore, you will feel much better knowing that such a personal tragedy will not be compounded by financial devastation.

If you would like to review or update your existing coverage, don’t hesitate to give me a call.

Have a great weekend,

Tracey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source:  Original article by Golda Brown, posted on Advisor.ca 09-04-13