Mother's Day was yesterday, so let me raise something I see in a lot of family reviews.
When a household has one parent earning and one at home, the earner is usually insured, at least a little. The parent at home, very often, isn't.
The reasoning sounds sensible: insurance replaces income, and she doesn't have one. (It's usually a she, though not always.)
But that reasoning misses what she actually does.
What the parent at home is worth
Make a list of what the stay-at-home parent does in a week.
Childcare. School runs. Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. Homework help. Looking after an elderly parent. Managing the household budget. Taking the kids to the doctor. Being the person who knows where everything is.
Now imagine she can't do any of it. Because of an illness, an accident, or her death.
Someone has to. The working parent may have to cut hours, change jobs, or stop work entirely. Or the family pays for it: a yaya, a cook, a driver, after-school care, a caregiver for the lola.
That is a real financial cost, often a large one, and it can go on for years.
The household runs on two incomes, even when only one is paid
This is the key idea. A stay-at-home parent doesn't earn a salary, but she saves the household a salary's worth of costs every month.
If she's gone, those costs appear. Or the working parent's income drops. Usually both.
So the question isn't "does she earn?" It's "what would it cost this family to live without what she does?"
What cover makes sense
This depends on the family, but the main things to think about:
Life cover that would let the household pay for childcare and help for the years the children need it, and give the working parent room to adjust without losing their job.
Critical illness cover for her, because a serious diagnosis means both the cost of treatment and the cost of replacing what she does while she recovers.
Her own policy, owned by her where possible, so it stays hers whatever happens in the future.
The objections I hear
"We can't afford two policies." Then look at the balance. A smaller policy on each parent is often better than one large policy on one, because a family can lose either.
"Her family will help." Maybe. For a while. But family help tends to fade after the first months, exactly when the long cost begins.
"She's healthy." So was everyone, until they weren't. And healthy is when cover is cheapest and easiest to get.
A question for the couple
Sit down together and answer this: if the parent at home were unable to do anything she does now, for a year, what would we do and what would it cost?
Write the number down. That's roughly what her cover needs to address.
After Mother's Day
Flowers are lovely. Lunch out is lovely.
But if you want to give the mother in your household something that matters, start a conversation about protecting her. Not because she earns. Because the whole house runs on her.
