Stay-At-Home Parents Are Worth A Lot – Are You Protected?

When Hubs and I decided to start our family, we seriously considered life insurance on each of us, as you may have read.  The reason was obvious, because if one of us passed, we needed to continue supporting the family. However, the decision to insure me was differently motivated.

I’m half a SAHM, and half in the workforce.  The life insurance on me wasn’t to replace my income, but to replace all that I do.  Confused? This article from Forbes may help clear things up.  What I read helped me form into words what Hubs and I considered when we took out my policy.

Not only do I bring home part of the bacon, I also do the grocery shopping, housekeeping, babysitting, laundry, cooking (most), animal care, and taxiing. If you consider the cost of outsourcing all those services, it’s a whopping unimaginable cost.  That’s worth insuring (daycare alone can be up to 11k a year!).

Now consider the disability insurance on the working spouse.  Do you have it? What does the policy consider the “occupation”. If it say “any occupation” then you could be in trouble (read: you may not qualify for the help if you can do any job, including being a greeter at a box store!).  You’ll want the policy to read “own occupation”. We made sure Hub’s disability policy was foolproof in language regarding this.  Sometimes, privately held disability policys will kick in if the wife is on maternity leave. Visit with your financial advisor for details.

Make sure that whatever financial decisions you and your family participate in, you do it together.  There’s nothing worse than one person making all the decisions while the other is uninformed, or completely ignorant on the money being spent.  Choose a financial advisor that fits your needs and take your time choosing which policies fit your situations – and remember that you can flex with your situations and over time.  Just like home and auto insurance, life and disability insurance cover you for when the worst happens. To make sure it’s not the worst. Hubs and I wanted to make sure that Red was safe no matter what, even though it’s not fun to think about the alternative.