Does My Child Need Life Insurance Coverage?

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

Whether or not a child needs life insurance coverage is a widely argued debate. If you examine the following information and feel that you are in a position that would benefit from life insurance being placed on your child, then this would be the best decision for you. Some people are not in a situation that would be helped by their child having life insurance. The conclusion to this debate will vary from person to person and you will only be able to get to the appropriate answer for your situation by thinking about the main points of such coverage.

Many people argue that children do not need life insurance. Being as the mortality rate for children is much lower than that of adults, some people feel that such coverage is an unnecessary economic drain on a family. On top of that, insurance is given out to individuals who have something to lose in the event of the untimely death of the individual insured. Adults often provide for their family. While children are beloved and indispensable on an emotional and mental level, they very rarely offer their family financial or monetary stability. As such, it is unlikely that, from a financial standpoint, individuals would have something to lose from the death of a child.

On the other side of the argument, some people feel that having a life insurance policy on a child is a good thing to put in place since it is never too soon to get life insurance coverage. Everyone dies, and these people will be prepared from a fiscal standpoint. As a person gets older, their life insurance premiums almost always increase over time. This is because individuals often open themselves up more to either short-term or long-term life-threatening practices, such as smoking, drinking, driving vehicles including motorcycles and the like. Children are still fairly innocent and limited in their exposure. Children can get some of the lowest insurance premiums offered by life insurance companies. In addition, many life insurance companies that offer coverage for children will keep the premiums the same, no matter how old the child eventually gets. There is definitely an advantage for individuals who have their insurance premiums set when they are three years old as opposed to fifty years old.

For the most part, a family's financial situation will help them to determine which decision might be best for them. If a family has the extra money needed to pay for such a policy, it might be good for the child when it comes to the long-term experiences of their life. Specifically, it would be great for the child when it gets to the point that they would eventually need to file for life insurance coverage. However, if a family does not have the money needed for such a venture, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Most families do not need the policy coverage that the child's policy would offer. The benefits are often established and developed later, when the child needs to take over such payments and they find out they will be paying a lot less compared to other people their age who are just now taking out life insurance policies.