Many parents still go without life insurance coverage

Across the country, many life insurance agencies have, in the past few years, seen a sizable uptick in the number of first-time clients they have coming aboard, in addition to previous policyholders who had to eschew coverage for a while as a result of financial difficulties. Young adults flocking to buy these plans to provide for their new families have been a major cause for upticks in life insurance sales the last few years, but many Americans with children still go without these protections for a number of reasons.

The latest data from the Life Insurance Marketing Research Association reveal about 30 percent of U.S. households have no life insurance coverage at all, and just 44 percent have individual coverage in this regard, according to a report from Life Health Pro. This comes despite the fact that some 58 million people nationwide agree that they need more life insurance overall as a means of protecting their loved ones if the unthinkable were to happen.

This kind of coverage can be vital not only for replacing income lost for a family as a whole, but also providing the necessary building blocks for a future of success for its youngest members, the report said. Many families use life insurance policies not only to make sure they can live more comfortably in the wake of a loved one's passing, but also to pay for college tuition and other costs related to education that are expected to continue growing at sizable rates over the coming years.

What can consumers do?
While there are a number of ways in which Americans should try to make sure that they're saving for their children's college educations in a number of different ways, ensuring that this kind of investment will continue in the event of their death is of the utmost importance, the report said. Leaving children or spouses with any uncertainty about the ways in which they're going to have to pay future tuition bills can be a major concern that is not easily overcome, especially with that potential lack of a secondary income.

Insurance companies might, consequently, do well to highlight to interested consumers the ways in which life coverage can help to ease the financial burdens faced by children when it comes to paying for college five, 10, or 15 years down the line. With the way tuition and other costs are growing these days, the cost of attending college could be far less bearable within the next decade.