Life Insurance May Be Going to the Dogs: Survey

By Allison Bell

News March 11, 2020 at 02:19 AM

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Many U.S. consumers would like to use life insurance proceeds to protect their pets.

AIG Life & Retirement, an arm of American International Group Inc., has reported that finding in a summary of the results from a recent online survey of 2,201 U.S. adults.

Resources

A summary of the AIG survey results is available here.
An article about trusts for pets is available here.

The survey team asked the participants many questions about what they know about life insurance, and what they think about life insurance.

The team found, for example, that only 25% of the survey participants knew that the holders of whole life policies can take out policy loans.

Just 17% knew that consumers can use life insurance policy chronic illness riders to pay long-term care bills.

The team also asked the following question: "I would use life insurance proceeds to ensure that the following are protected in the event of my death. Please select all that apply."

Children ranked first: 49% of the participants said they'd use life insurance to protect children.

Nearly as many — 47% — said they'd life insurance to protect a spouse.

Pets ranked third: 18% of the participants said they'd like to use life insurance to protect their pets.

Pets ranked a little above siblings, and far above friends and grandparents.

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