Starting a family is a momentous life event and there certainly is a lot to think about – and we don’t just mean accumulating baby paraphernalia and stockpiling tiny baby clothes! Having a child has a profound effect on your financial situation. You also need to ensure that your family is protected, should anything happen to upset the family apple cart.
When it comes to insurance, there are a few important things to think about. Infinity Financial Services has put together this list for parents and parents-to-be to consider when thinking about financially protecting their families:
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Consider a maternity insurance
Usually, only the top of the range health insurance policies include maternity insurance. Most local or basic plans don’t, so it requires some serious forward thinking – you need to have a plan in place at least 12 months before you get pregnant.
Of course, not everyone is bang on with their family planning and accidents do happen! If you are young, female and planning a family at some point, even if not immediately, you should think about purchasing fully comprehensive maternity cover.
Once you are pregnant it will be too late and the cost of pre-natal scans and tests, a hospital delivery and a comprehensive cover to deal with any potential complications can do some serious damage to your bank balance.
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Work out your life insurance requirements
Once you become a parent, responsibilities ramp up and the consequences of anything unexpected happening to you become far more serious than when you have just yourself to think about.
Take Aesop’s famous fable, The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs. Imagine finding such a magical goose at Chow Kit Market and bringing it home with your vegetables. You’d want to take out an insurance for the creature, wouldn’t you?
But would you insure the goose or the eggs? Common sense would say that losing the goose would be much costlier than loosing a single egg, right? It seems obvious but in real life, majority of people take care to insure their ‘eggs’, in the form of their material possessions, but fail to protect their ‘goose’ – their ability to earn.
It is worth remembering that financial impact on a family of losing a parent can be huge, whether they are the family breadwinner or a stay-at-home parent. It is hard to estimate the cost of employing someone to carry out all the duties that a loving parent does for free. Salary.com attempt it every year and put the 2018 figure at a whopping $162,581! When you look at it like that life insurance makes absolute sense.
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Check for gaps in your medical insurance cover
It is a good idea to periodically review the cover that you have in place and work out if there are any gaps. People often believe that the insurance cover they have is adequate until something goes seriously wrong and they get an unpleasant surprise. It is better to cross all those t’s and dot all those i’s well in advance of your baby’s arrival but if you already have a family and don’t have cover, put it to the top of your priority list now!
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Think about whole of life insurance for your children
This is a little-known type of insurance which may sound too good to be true but really does exist. Whole of life insurance covers a newborn baby throughout their childhood until the age of 18 by offering a lump sum should they get diagnosed with a critical illness. When they reach adulthood, they have a choice between cashing the accumulated cash value of the insurance (which will usually yield significantly higher returns than a cash deposit) and using it to pay for university fees, a deposit on a house purchase or to set up a business, or keeping the policy and benefiting from life insurance and critical illness cover for the rest of their life.
Insurance can be complicated, and it is important that you read and understand the small print to ensure that your requirements are covered and tally with your expectations. Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification from your insurer if anything is unclear to you. If you’d like help comparing and understanding the different products on the market to ensure that you get the right cover, we recommend that you engage a financial adviser who is experienced in working with families.
This post is sponsored and written by Infinity. Infinity’s advisers have a wealth of experience as well as access to a huge range of insurance products from the world’s best providers. If you’d like further information you can contact them at info@infinitysolutions.com.
