The need for life insurance on your child is real. If your child dies, you are left with funeral and burial costs and maybe medical bills. You might also appreciate having the extra cash that life insurance proceeds could provide so you can afford to take some time off work for a few weeks, because you might not feel much like working immediately after such a sad circumstance.

However, instead of buying a separate life insurance policy on your child, consider this idea: Many life insurance companies allow you to add a rider to your own life insurance policy at a cost of about $5 extra per month that will cover the lives of all your children for $10,000 each. No matter how many children you have, they are all included under the same $5 (not $5 each). For many people this would be a sufficient amount of coverage. If not, it may be possible to put a child rider on the husband's life insurance policy for $10,000 coverage on each child and another rider on the wife's life insurance policy for another $10,000 of coverage on each child. Some policies might allow for more than $10,000 of coverage on the children.

Child coverage life insurance riders on most policies allow that when the child(ren) reaches adulthood they can convert the $10,000 in coverage to as much as $50,000 in life insurance coverage on a policy of their own, without proof of insurability.

Some people buy a regular cash value life insurance policy on the life of their child with the idea that it will build up cash values and the child will have the money for college when they grow up. The problem is that in order to have it build up enough cash value to fund college in the future, you would have to make it a policy that also had a higher death benefit on the child's life than what is probably necessary.

If you are interested in the idea of using a conservative vehicle such as life insurance to build up cash values for a child's college funds, then why not consider putting the coverage on yourself? After all, if the child dies, he won't need any money for college, but if you die, he still will! So with cash value life insurance coverage on you, if you die prematurely, the child will have the money! And if you live and keep paying into the life insurance policy, then the cash values will build up and your child will have you and the money!

Contact PGA Financial to receive information on how you can get the right insurance for your child.

Return to Life Insurance Home Page

Get a quote

Licensed in:
Arizona, California (license #0629626), Texas, and Virginia. For other states, inquiries are referred to agents licensed to handle insurance in that particular state.

PGA Financial has no intent to generate interest in any particular life insurance company or specific policy, but rather to inform and educate you on the general concept -- after which, if you are interested, a broker at PGA Financial will be glad to research companies that offer such plans, get you a quote and assist you in making a choice. If you do become interested and obtain a policy, the broker would be compensated by the insurance company.

© 1998 The PGA Financial Co. All rights reserved.