Millions of fathers have no life insurance

An unnerving amount of working men whose children rely on them financially have no life insurance cover should the worst happen, latest research shows.

The study, which was conducted by a well-known insurance firm, highlights that almost four million working fathers who are the biggest provider for the family, have no life insurance cover whatsoever – meaning if they were to become ill and couldn’t work anymore, or were to pass away, their family would be left with nothing. No income, no payout.

Put simply, well over half of men (57 per cent) with a family to support do not pay into life policies, and personally, we think this is crazy. Nobody knows what is around the corner, so it is always better to be prepared for every eventuality.

The decision to have no life cover could have disastrous consequences if the male in the family is the breadwinner, as this would leave many families unable to pay bills, mortgages and rent, and generally anything else classed as an outgoing. It would also be particularly difficult to get on top of finances whilst grieving a loss or caring for someone who was ill.  In our opinion, it makes sense to have this kind of thing sorted and in place from the offset, so that an income is there ready and waiting should the worst happen.

The sorry statistics don’t stop there either. Only 18 per cent of male breadwinners have critical illness cover which means should they contract an illness that means they cannot work for a prolonged period of time, they may find their money runs out.

Nearly 42 per cent of people said that they would have to borrow money from family or friends if they ended up ill or off work for a lengthy period of time, as the majority of people also admitted to not having any savings. Nearly 60 per cent of the people interviewed for this research candidly admitted to not having anything saved up, and said they weren’t putting any of their wage away in the form of protection should they lose their job. Whilst a minority of people said that they just ‘hadn’t got round to it’, the majority said that they didn’t have enough money left over at the end of the month to put towards any form of savings.

Whilst we appreciate the enormity of finding spare cash at the end of the month to put away in a savings pot, we cannot stress enough the importance of having something to fall back on. Savings pots and life policies should all be addressed as a matter of urgency, as a lot of the time it is the wider family that suffer.