Parents at Home Need Life Insurance Too: Idea File

What You Need to Know

COVID-19 can affect people of all ages.
Today, young parents especially see the value of life insurance.
Too many couples forget the value provided by the parent who stays home with the children.

Jessica Lepore, the founder of Surevested, an online life insurance agency that opened earlier this year, is spreading a message that’s almost as old as the modern U.S. life insurance industry: The work that husbands and wives do at home has a large financial value

Lepore is doing this in observance of Life Insurance Awareness Month.

As the business development manager at John Lepore Insurance Agency as well as the creator of Surevested, Lepore discussed in a recent email interview the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clients, and the importance of insuring the life of the spouse who stays home with the kids. .

Here are three points Lepore made:

1. The pandemic has made consumers more aware of how well, or poorly, they’re prepared for unforeseen events.

That awareness affects how consumers think about everything from where they live to what they spend, Lepore said.

2. The new focus on preparing for the unexpected has increased young people’s interest in life insurance.

Young people, and especially young parents, today see that they need to insure the income of any family breadwinners.

3. What young parents often don’t know is the cost of replacing the services of the spouse who watches the children, cooks the meals and cleans the house.

Older people may be more likely to die from COVID-19 than younger people, but some parents of young children do die from COVID-19, and parents asking Lepore about life insurance usually know they need to insure the life of spouses who earn traditional salaries.

What agents still have to tell young parents is that “it is just as important to consider purchasing life insurance for those who don’t earn a traditional salary in the same way you consider it for those who do,” Lepore said.

“Consider this: You have a family with two parents. One parent works full-time, while the other stays at home to take care of the children. It is easy to calculate the financial impact of losing the parent that provides a traditional income. However, calculating the financial value of the stay-at-home parent is a bit trickier.

“Without that person, the other parent would need to pay for full-time child care as well as the other home maintenance that the stay-at-home parent provides such as food shopping, cooking, and cleaning (to name a few),” she said.