Need for a Life Insurance for the Non-Working Spouse

The spouse who has to stay at home, looking after the children, cooking, and supporting the family often has a more tiresome job to do, than the working spouse. If we really see it through the lens, probably the ‘Non-working’ Spouse, as the life insurance industry calls it, has more of the work to do without getting paid as much as its office-going counterpart.

If you are a family and either you or your spouse stays home with the children, it is most likely that only the working souse has life insurance coverage because that’s the case with most families in our country.

Life Insurance is a Family Affair

While it is wise to buy a life insurance policy to protect the income of the earning spouse, covering the non-working spouse may not seem as important. However, at a minimum, you should consider the financial value of child care, house care, and other domestic services that your spouse has been taking care of at present. Besides getting money into the family, the non-working spouse holds a responsibility for everything that doesn’t offer bonus, perks, and promotions.

In most cases in India, the non-working spouse is a woman and it may be unimaginable to account for the financial implications in case of their absence, keep aside the emotional damage. And a term insurance cover for house makers, non-working spouses, or say a housewife, proves helpful exactly here, ensuring your family tides over the financial damages in case something unfortunate happens.

Can non-working spouses qualify for a life insurance?

Yes! Life insurance companies do realize that taking care of the house is an equally important as earning an income for the household. In most cases, the life insurance offered to the stay-at-home spouse depends on the coverage and income of the earning counterpart.

Most modern insurance covers let you add your spouse under the same policy for an additional premium, often lower than your own premium. One such cover by Canara HSBC Life Insurance Company is the iSelect Smart360 Term Plan. With comprehensive coverage features like accidental benefit, increasing/ decreasing cover and whole life cover, the policy also offers a Spouse cover.

Here are the features of adding a Spouse Cover to your iSelect Smart360 Term Plan:

• If marriage has taken place after the policy commencement date, you can add the Spouse to your policy within one year from the date of the marriage.
  
• Both you and the spouse are covered throughout the policy term for your respective separate sums assured.
  
• On occurrence of first death or diagnosis of terminal illness, to either of you, the sum assured on death corresponding to the affected life is paid and the policy continues with life cover for the other life with reduced premium.
  
• The policy terminates only after the sum assured on death or diagnosis of Terminal Illness of the second life, or on maturity of the policy term, thereafter.
  
• The Policy Term, Premium Payment Term and the premium payment mode remains the same for the Spouse, as yours.

Note: The categorization of Spouse into Working and Non-Working will be as per the Company’s Board Approved Underwriting Policy (BAUP).

When deciding the right amount of coverage required for your spouse, everyone’s need may be different. When calculating an amount, ask yourself what it will cost to hire someone to replace your spouse and perform all the tasks your non-working spouse does throughout the day.

Then compute this number as an annual cost and multiply by the approximate number of years you would need those services, say until your children start going to college, or until you retire to take care of the house yourself.

At minimal, you want a policy to provide at least 5 years worth of income replacement, until you can balance out things. Your spouse’s cover must be useful to pay for childcare expenses and all the help you need around the house.

If you are looking for life insurance, you probably realize the need to secure your family financially, but if you are married, your safety net is probably incomplete unless your spouse also has an adequate life insurance coverage to take care of your family’s overall financial needs.