Child life insurance

Child life insurance is a form of permanent life insurance that insures the life of a minor. It is usually purchased to protect a family against the sudden and unexpected costs of a child’s funeral or burial^[1] and to secure inexpensive and guaranteed insurance for the lifetime of the child.^[2] It offers guaranteed growth of cash value, which some carriers allow to be withdrawn (collapsing the policy) when the child is in their early twenties.^[3] Child life insurance policies typically offer the owner the option to purchase, or in some cases obtain additional guaranteed insurance when the child reaches maturity.^[4]

Child life insurance policies typically:^[5][6]

• Are issued with face values between $5,000 and $50,000.
• Are always issued without a required medical examination.
• Have zero investment and zero interest rate risk associated with cash value growth.
• Provide insurance coverage for a designated beneficiary.

Child life insurance should not be confused with juvenile life insurance, which is issued with much larger face values (normally $100,000 - $10,000,000) and is generally purchased for college savings, lifetime savings, estate planning and guaranteed insurability.^[7]

Child life insurance has been criticized for causing a motive for murder of insured children. 45 coroners have stated that child life insurance is a motive to murder.^[8] The Friendly Societies Act 1875 provided for payments on the death of children to pay the expenses of their burial. The coroner, Mr Braxton Hicks, wrote a letter to the Times in 1889 denouncing the practice of insuring children's lives because the insurances act as a temptation to the parents to neglect them, or feed them with improper food, and sometimes even to kill them.^[9]

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