In many cases, Life Insurance policies for children are offered purely on emotion and not on true necessity or need. The adverts and sales people will use sales pitch like “if you truly love your child…” you will protect them with a life insurance coverage. They will also explain how affordable life insurance is for kids. There are a couple of problems with this.

While the commercials and sales agents may charm your emotions, the financial realities are that a loss of a child will actually free you of a financial commitment. This is not to ignore or make light of the emotional ravaging that comes with a death of a child for which nothing can recompense. The fact, however, when looking at it purely from a financial view is that a family will not have to spend as much money when they no longer have a child to cherish. It definitely costs less not having a child than having one.

Another ploy is that children’s life insurance is inexpensive. It is affordable compared to adult life insurance because, plain and simply, children seldom die. While the numbers that the sales agent puts jointly may make children’s life insurance sound like a major deal, take the time to run what you’d have if you as an alternative invested the exact same sum of money used on the insurance fees into a Roth IRA or other investment alternatives and you’ll find the real cost of buying this type of life insurance policy.

When buying life insurance, it’s important to think that its main purpose is to substitute an income that is lost when one dies. A child rarely has an net worth. Unless your child is a child TV star or that the main source of income for your family in some other way, there is seldom a need to have life insurance for him or her.