Life Insurance …. It’s important

Parents have blamed busy lives, lack of information and a reluctance to think about death for failing to make any plans for their children should they die unexpectedly.

Although three quarters of parents believe it is important to have an up to date will, only 25 per cent of those asked in a survey conducted by the Childhood Bereavement Network said they had.

In response to these findings the Childhood Bereavement Network has launched the awareness campaign Plan If to encourage parents to make legal and personal plans to protect their young children should one or both parents die.

While legal plans such as Wills, plans for guardianship and insurance are important to have in place, the Plan If campaign also recognises that personal belongings such as letters and family stories are important things to have in place for children to access.

A sixth of parents said thinking about what would happen to their children if they died was too hard to think about and a quarter hope no such plan will be needed.

Alison Penny, coordinator of the Childhood Bereavement Network said: “Mortality statistics show that in people of parental age around one in four deaths are unexpected, with little or no time to put arrangements in place. We believe in the importance of all parents making plans now in case they die while their children are still young.”

“Our research highlights the necessity of providing both emotional and practical support for all parents to make their own Plan If, to ensure their children and families are cared for should the worst happen.”

“We hope that Plan If will play a part in making society as a whole more aware of and more prepared to talk about parental death and in that way, play a part in helping bereaved children and young people respond to a death.”

One anonymous respondent who is backing the campaign and said: “My husband always made sure we had life insurance to cover the mortgage. We wrote our Wills when our first child was born, and included guardians in case something happened to both of us.

“When he died, leaving two children under 5, I was so glad he made that such a priority … It’s harder than you think to talk about things; I could never ask him about funeral arrangements, for example, so when he did die, I had to guess. Now I have a file on my computer, so no one has to ask me, or to guess my wishes.”