Irish Life recently carried out a survey to gauge the proportion of parents in Ireland who hold life cover. The result was that 48% of parents in Ireland with children under 17 have no life cover. We don’t find this very surprising as many people who take out life cover only do so to satisfy a condition in a loan offer, and many people don’t see the value of having life cover for the protection of their dependents. So, do you need life cover?

Anyone who has dependents who rely on their income, needs life cover, and by that we don’t just mean mortgage protection cover which it must be remembered in the event of your death is paid to the bank to discharge your mortgage. People are probably programmed not to think about their own death too much, but the fact is that if you have a family, even if your spouse works, things are going to be tight financially in the event of your demise. It’s likely that most people, at least in the back of their minds, accept this but don’t tackle the issue due to a belief that the cost of life cover is prohibitive. This isn’t necessarily the case.

A 30 year old male (who isn’t subject to any loading in relation to health issues) can currently get level term life cover of around €160,000 for a twenty year term for around €10 per month; that’s not much over the cost of two pints of beer. If invested at a modest return of 5%, €160,000 would provide an additional income to your family of €1,000 a month for over 20 years – that’s a valuable policy to have should the worst happen and if (hopefully) it doesn’t happen you still have peace of mind.