Many Parents Who Want to Buy Life Insurance Freeze Up: SBLI

By Allison Bell

News September 17, 2018 at 11:37 PM

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Many parents who want to buy life insurance, and probably could afford to pay for life insurance, fail to do so because they get stuck.

Analysts at Savings Bank Mutual Life Insurance Company of Massachusetts (SBLI) talk about the life insurance shopper deer-in-the-headlights problem in a look at data from the company's SBLI Self-Awareness Quiz.

(Related: Lincoln Adds Indexed Variable Annuity)

SBLI says it developed the online quiz program to help parents check their level of financial awareness. The Woburn, Massachusetts-based company released quiz data as Life Happens is running a Life Insurance Awareness Month campaign.

About 1,200 parents have used the quiz form.

44% of the parent users said they have no plan for protecting their families against the risk of premature death.
36% of the users have developed a plan and used life insurance or other arrangements to implement the plan.
20% of the users said they have a plan but have not implemented the plan.

SBLI found that the typical quiz user who have a plan but have failed to implement the plan has spent three or more years thinking about creating plan.

About 36% of the procrastinators said they have failed to implement a plan because they believe they cannot afford life insurance.

More — 54% — said they have gotten stuck either because they have been too busy or for some reason they can't explain.

The SBLI awareness quiz tool is available here.

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