Life insurance is something few of us really ever want to think about. Sometimes it can feel as if taking life insurance means we will need it sooner than we would like. We all want to imagine we will live into our old age and see our children grow up.
However, we know that there is always the possibility of a different outcome. So that we do not leave our dependents to suffer in the event of our passing or our inability to work we take life cover.
The most obvious instances where we tend to take life cover is for the primary earner in a family where their passing will leave a spouse and children unable to attain the lifestyle, education and potential they had envisioned for them.
Even in this most clear cut case, life cover is often put off. However, there are many other situations that are often overlooked altogether, where the passing of an individual can result in more than just the emotional and personal loss of a death.
At Home Parent
The at home parent is vastly undervalued, most often by themselves. The contribution of the tasks they carry out in the home, looking after children, feeding and clothing them, bringing them to school and generally managing the household is highly underestimated. Some reports estimate the value of a stay at home parent at upwards of €50,000 per annum.
With the loss of an at home parent these tasks have to be sourced elsewhere. Life cover for an at home parent can help to compensate for the loss of those contributions and limit the challenges resulting from their passing.
Single Parents
For a single parent, who is solely responsible for their family, their loss will obviously leave that family in a more difficult situation than a two parent family. At the same time a single parent might feel they cannot even allow themselves to imagine that situation and so put off dealing with the necessity of life insurance.
Among the many additional challenges a single parent faces, preparing for the possibility that your children may be left without their parent is one of the most difficult. However, it is vital to ensure the continued comfort of children and other dependants in the event of that parent passing.
Couples without Children
Even where both partners are working it can be difficult to disentangle spending and determine how reliant each is on the other. Life cover policies can ensure that unexpected costs are not a burden on the surviving partner.
For sole earner couples the situation is more clear. If the earner dies it will be difficult for the surviving partner to maintain mortgage and other payments.
Where a couple is planning on having children it is expedient to take life cover before children are born as the benefits of this cover will generally be greater.
Employer
Even a single person without children may have many people who are dependent on them. If you are a key person in a business you may avail of special life cover policies that can ensure the continuance of your business or at least the proper closing of that business, providing staff with adequate redundancy payments.
A single self employed person is also dependent on themselves. Should they become debilitatingly ill and be unable to work they may be unable to support themselves. As a self employed person they may also be unable to avail of welfare payments and even where they are, those payments may not be enough to sustain their home or lifestyle.
Income protection can ensure self employed persons receive a substantial proportion of their income should they be unable to work through illness.
Retiree
A person’s children may be grown and no longer dependent but upon that person’s death they may receive a substantial inheritance and with it an equally substantial tax bill. In the event of a retiree’s death, life cover will pay out. This will make money readily available to cover tax or any other costs enabling the family to distribute the inheritance without difficulty.
It is easy to think that life cover may not apply or be important in a particular situation but there are many different ways in which life cover can protect and secure the future of loved ones.
