With people living longer, the ranks of seniors is becoming an
ever larger group. Children of seniors are now more concerned than ever about
the cost of final expenses and burial costs. Can a child take care of an aging
parent’s funeral insurance? Read on.

The so called sandwich generation, mostly comprised of baby
boomers ages 55 to 65, has found itself caught between aging parents and dependent
children. Many of these baby boomers are concerned that their aging parents may
not have the resources to take care of final expenses and basic burial costs.
Can the child of aging parent take out a life insurance policy on that parent?
The answer is simply yes but with some conditions!

The child of a senior must be aware that taking life
insurance on a parent must be done with the parent’s consent and awareness. In situations
were the child has power of attorney, this consent may still be needed. Besides,
since every senior may have a different idea about what they want for burial,
it would be important and respectfully to ask them first. Some seniors may just
want to be cremated while others want something much more elaborate. You don’t
want to buy a life insurance policy only to find out that your parent had
written instructions that may be pricier than what you had planned. Another
major reason to have your parent involved in the application process is accuracy.
You must make sure that all questions in the application have been answered
correctly. Parents tend to be a bit secretive about ALL their health conditions
and answered no to a health question when it should be yes, could be ground for
a rescinded policy or worse, a denied claim. As a child, I am sure you want to
help your parent but again, make sure that all questions are answered correctly
on the application. If you suspect that an answer should be answered yes, ask your
parent if it would be OK to check with their DR.

I also recommend that the policy owner be the child rather
than the parent. This would be for two main reasons. One, if your parent
becomes unable to think for himself or herself then it can become difficult to
make changes to the policy without involving the legal system. If the child is the
owner of the policy, changes can be made by the child with, usually, just a phone
call. Two, if the policy on the senior is a whole life insurance policy, the cash
value in the policy may affect the seniors ability to qualify for certain
government benefits or your parent may see his or her benefits reduced.

Please note that, if you are going to get a life insurance
on your parent, you should do this as soon as you can but certainly before they
reach age 86. At this age and beyond, it seems that it becomes  extremely difficult and expensive to get a
life insurance policy. Regardless, Prices can jump significantly from one age
bracket to the next so the sooner the better. Make sure that you keep the plan
affordable though as you would not want to start a plan only to cancel it a few
months later because your budget is too tight. If you cancel the life insurance
early, all of your premiums may be lost!

We hope that this brief article has answered your questions
and more. As we say in nearly all of our articles, once your parent does get
approved and you receive the life insurance (burial or funeral) policy, please
review it carefully. You certainly would not want to find out on the day your
parent passed away that the policy is not what you expected. Losing a parent is
traumatic enough. Be well!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philippe Deray – About the Author:

Philippe Deray is President and CEO of MCD Financial
Services and MCD Life. Our web site address is http://www.mcdlife.com/burial_insurance/burial_life_insurance.htm

Our focus is Life Insurance

With many years of experience in the insurance business, we
have developed proprietary methods to help individuals get affordable life
insurance. We offer insurance plans for all individuals including seniors to
age 85. Plan options are term life insurance, whole life, universal life
insurance and index life insurance. We will make this process as simple as
possible and get you an answer as fast as possible.