Our family went to a local amusement park for the 4th of July celebration. While standing in the various lines with our children I noticed a man who was clearly hurting, sad, and appeared very lonely. He hardly smiled watching his three young children enjoy the day. At one point while standing in one of the lines we had a conversation.
The man told me that just before Christmas his wife suffered a brain aneurysm and suddenly died at the age of 31, leaving him to raise their children alone. He said, “I never stopped to think about the financial contributions my wife really made to the stability of our family, until I was left to cover all the bases myslef. The summer childcare costs have been devastating, not to mention the cooking, cleaning, shopping and errands my wife had always taken care of for our family.”
A homemaker, a housewife a stay at home mother, the title wasn’t important. His family had carefully planned their finances and tried consider all the possibilities, they had purchased enough insurance to cover the loss of his income in the event something happened to him but given little thought about insurance for his wife. After all she wasn’t contributing to the family earnings.
It may sound terrible but, the fact is if you’re thinking about life insurance for the family bread winner it’s important to consider all of the costs your family might incur if the services of a stay at home parent needed to be paid for.
Salary.com conducted a study during 2005, and concluded the average stay-at-home mother would earn $131,471.00 if she were paid for her services. The Salary.com site has a nice service where stay-at-home parents can calculate what they would be paid in real dollars. Then create a printable document which looks like a paycheck. If you wonder how much life insurance a stay at home parent should purchase this service makes the value of the stay-at-home parent very clear.
There are some important reasons parents and families may want to consider life insurance and some tangible reasons to consider insuring the parent who takes care of the family. There isn’t much the man at the amusement park can do now to cover the loss of his wife, but there are things we can do to spare our families from suffering the same overwhelming loss.
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