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Many experts encourage stay-at-home parents to obtain life insurance coverage. Why? Even family members who don’t earn a salary make effective financial contributions.

When you combine the hourly rate for the services the typical stay-at-home parent provides, including child care, cooking, cleaning and transportation, the cost comes in at $30,000 to $40,000 annually. While stay-at-home parents may not bring home a traditional paycheck, the value of their responsibilities quickly adds up.

If the stay-at-home parent in your household died today, would you have to:

• Take on additional employment to make up for financial loss?
• Hire a nanny for your children?
• Withdraw emergency funds from a savings or investment account?
• Hire a tutor to help your children with their schoolwork?
• Hire a housekeeper to maintain a clean and healthy environment?
• Hire a driver to transport your children to their extracurricular activities?
• Reduce flexible spending habits?

These are the factual reasons why stay-at-home parents should have term life insurance coverage. But many people overlook one of the most important factors: the inevitable lost income of the surviving spouse.

The psychological damage that is created when a child loses a parent can be significant. To a young child, the loss of a parent is nothing less than emotionally devastating. According to a recent study in The Wall Street Journal, children who lost parents at a young age were more likely to be hospitalized for depression or to commit violent crimes. The same study revealed that two-thirds of children who lost parents at a young age “felt like they weren’t a kid anymore.”

If the stay-at-home parent in your household died today, you would be faced with two difficult decisions:

1. Keep working, hire a nanny and risk your child’s psychological state.
2. Stop working, at least for a while, and be there for your children during a time of grief.

While life insurance can’t replace a parent, it does provide the spouses of stay-at-home parents with the financial flexibility to take time off work and grieve with their children. Without life insurance, families often do not have that option.