Protecting stay-at-home parents

However, there is often a misconception among clients and some advisers that there is a need to protect just the income earner, as the stay-at-home client ‘doesn’t work’, according to Jiten Varsani, mortgage and protection adviser at London Money.

Protection for stay-at-home parents raises a number of questions, says Naomi Greatorex, director at Heath Protection Solutions. These include:

1. Who would help with the children if that parent was sick or died?
2. Would the surviving parent need to take a prolonged period of time off work to look after the children, or their sick partner?

“Many people assume [the breadwinner will] just carry on, paying the bills as usual,” says Emma Thomson, head of protection and GI propositions at Sesame Bankhall Group.

However, the main breadwinner may need to reduce their working commitments or give up work completely, even for a temporary period, to spend more time at home and that will impact their earnings.

“While the stay-at-home parent might not be generating an income, their day-to-day activities supporting the family, such as childcare, household chores, and ferrying the kids around all have a cost that would have to be covered should they be unable to do them. Legal & General has historically estimated the ‘value of a mum’ to be around £30,000 a year,” she adds.

Clients also tend to focus on protecting the working parent when a budget is tight, says Greatorex, with the stay-at-home parent often feeling that the family primarily needs protection against the risk of losing income if that person is sick or dies.

But the difference that some protection for the stay-at-home parent can make, rather than none, is “huge”, she adds.