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Life Insurance for Minors

Is it morally right to profit, through life insurance, from the death of a minor?

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roguenuke

roguenuke

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Alright, so I know of someone who has life insurance for her grown children and all of her grandchildren, with a clause that if they die due to foul play, the payout is double. She has admitted that it is because they are black, and she is essentially "playing the odds".

In November, one of her grandchildren drowned, along with another boy. The death was ruled as an accidental drowning by the police and the coroner, but she is pursuing a private investigation to try to prove that her grandson's death wasn't accidental, even implicating the other boy.

Now I was just wondering how people on here felt about anyone, parents, grandparents, or anybody else in a child's life profitting from a child's death. Along with that, I was wondering if it would matter if the person profitting had very little monetary and/or emotional attachment to the child.

Personally, I feel that life insurance has the specific purpose of paying for the expenses incurred from the person's death, any medical bills or other monetary committments associated with that person, and, mainly for adults, to partially compensate families for any loss of income losing that person may bring about, until the family can get back to living their lives. Now, I understand that this is not actually how life insurance works, but it would be the main purpose of me buying life insurance, especially for my children. To me, getting much more, if any, money beyond what really would be needed to address what I mentioned above is just greed, and to me, morally wrong.
 
Why on earth would anyone offer life insurance for a minor? As you point out, the only real purpose of life insurance is to provide for a family if a main breadwinner or caretaker dies. The idea of life insurance to cover "final expenses" is more dubious, but still wouldn't require more than a few thousand dollars in coverage.
 
MY parents had life insurance on me when I was child, but it was just enough to cover the funeral.
This lady is cold hearted, and hopefully she doesn't get the big pay out.
 
RightinNYC said:
Why on earth would anyone offer life insurance for a minor? As you point out, the only real purpose of life insurance is to provide for a family if a main breadwinner or caretaker dies. The idea of life insurance to cover "final expenses" is more dubious, but still wouldn't require more than a few thousand dollars in coverage.
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Exactly!
I think my parents would have got $3000 if I died, which probably would not have covered the whole funeral.
 
Yes it is totally 100% ok for a person to have life insurance on minors.

Now with that said I think what the lady is trying is WRONG but that doesnt condemn the idea of life insurance cause she is an idiot.

Also nothing wrong with hiring an investigator to make sure what happened IF your motives are proper

that doesnt "seem" to be the case here
 
As I understand it, the goal of life insurance is to replace the income of the deceased person in family finances, and cover costs like funeral, legal, etc. resulting from his/her death.

So I suppose life insurance on a minor to provide for funeral expenses would be reasonable.
 
Well, funerals can be expensive; the cost can be far too much for poor people, who have no significant savings and live paycheck to paycheck, to absorb.
If you are the sort of person who would feel comforted by a nice funeral and a nice headstone if your child died, then yes, I'd recommend life insurance for them.
Some people seem to feel they're dishonoring a loved one if they don't give them a nice send-off; never really understood it, personally, but the sentiment is definitely out there, and seems more prevalent among the poor than the affluent. These are, no doubt, the same people who spend massive amounts of money on nice weddings and then can't pay their rent the next month.
The same people who buy wedding rings (and before that, "promise" rings, followed by engagement rings) on payment plans.

To some people, the ceremony- the pageantry- is everything.
Without it, they just don't feel right.

To those people: yes. Insure every member of your family.

On a more pragmatic note, if your child dies, you may miss some work.
If you're poor and work at menial labor, you may even lose your job and eventually have to look for another.
The life insurance money will help tide you over, so that you don't end up homeless as well.
 
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O_Guru said:
Yes it is totally 100% ok for a person to have life insurance on minors.

Now with that said I think what the lady is trying is WRONG but that doesnt condemn the idea of life insurance cause she is an idiot.

Also nothing wrong with hiring an investigator to make sure what happened IF your motives are proper

that doesnt "seem" to be the case here
Click to expand...

The boys were close second cousins. There were two witnesses that both said that the boys got into the boat, which looked dangerous and, despite the witnesses protests, rowed out onto the pond. Then, the boat started sinking. Both tried to make it back to shore, but the pond was muddy and full of weeds, and they weren't really good swimmers. They both had complete medical examinations done, which found no signs of foul play on either boy. There is no actual evidence at all to suspect any foul play.

The mother of the boy does not agree with the grandmother at all, and has told the grandmother and the boy's father this. The grandmother has also been given all the information above, including the police reports and the medical examination. There is really no reason for her to investigate the death except for the monetary aspect for herself.

That said, I do not consider having life insurance for a minor to be morally wrong, just having life insurance on a minor to specifically profit from their death. I don't agree with abolishing life insurance for minors, although, I do believe that the only person/people who should be allowed to be beneficiaries of such a policy should be the person/people who would responsible for the child's final expenses and/or any medical/other bills that the child might have incurred prior to their death.
 
That said, I do not consider having life insurance for a minor to be morally wrong, just having life insurance on a minor to specifically profit from their death.
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What other reason could there be? :confused:

That's the entire point of insuring anyone's life; if they die, you profit.
I'm not sure I understand your objection. perhaps you could expand on it.

Is it what they do with the money after they receive it that concerns you?
 
1069 said:
What other reason could there be? :confused:

That's the entire point of insuring anyone's life; if they die, you profit.
I'm not sure I understand your objection. perhaps you could expand on it.

Is it what they do with the money after they receive it that concerns you?
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The profit portion. A person would not really be "profitting" from the life insurance if it was just enough or less than those expenses incurred from the person's death. If a person had to pay $2.5K for a funeral and miss some time off work, and received an insurance claim for $3K, all due to the death of their child, then there really isn't much of a profit. But, if a person wasn't responsible for the funeral, or any other expenses of that child and knew that they most likely wouldn't be responsible for such expenses, then they are profitting from the death of that child.

Life insurance is there to try to make up for the financial losses associated with that person. Or at least, this is how it is supposed to be. Even financial planners argue this. Many financial planners feel there are better ways to plan for an unexpected loss of your child than life insurance. Some will advise it for parents whose families may have a history of illness/disease that may make it harder for their child to get life insurance as an adult.

Should you buy life insurance for kids?

Most people feel that actually "profitting" from a child's death is wrong.
 
roguenuke said:
Alright, so I know of someone who has life insurance for her grown children and all of her grandchildren, with a clause that if they die due to foul play, the payout is double. She has admitted that it is because they are black, and she is essentially "playing the odds".

In November, one of her grandchildren drowned, along with another boy. The death was ruled as an accidental drowning by the police and the coroner, but she is pursuing a private investigation to try to prove that her grandson's death wasn't accidental, even implicating the other boy.

Now I was just wondering how people on here felt about anyone, parents, grandparents, or anybody else in a child's life profitting from a child's death. Along with that, I was wondering if it would matter if the person profitting had very little monetary and/or emotional attachment to the child.

Personally, I feel that life insurance has the specific purpose of paying for the expenses incurred from the person's death, any medical bills or other monetary committments associated with that person, and, mainly for adults, to partially compensate families for any loss of income losing that person may bring about, until the family can get back to living their lives. Now, I understand that this is not actually how life insurance works, but it would be the main purpose of me buying life insurance, especially for my children. To me, getting much more, if any, money beyond what really would be needed to address what I mentioned above is just greed, and to me, morally wrong.
Click to expand...

Most reputable insurance companies require you to have an insurable interest before they will cover a person.

This lady doesn't and is a scum bag.
 
I don't understand why people are voting it is morally acceptable to profit from the death of a minor...can someone explain it to me?

I understand that this practice is perfectly legal, but I was under the assumption that the poll's question as purely on a moral basis. If that is the case, as it seems to be, I'd really appreciate if somene could point out a reason to vote yes, it is acceptable on this poll.
 
repeter said:
I don't understand why people are voting it is morally acceptable to profit from the death of a minor...can someone explain it to me?

I understand that this practice is perfectly legal, but I was under the assumption that the poll's question as purely on a moral basis. If that is the case, as it seems to be, I'd really appreciate if somene could point out a reason to vote yes, it is acceptable on this poll.
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It's legality is actually questionable.

Most insurers require the person to have an insurable interest.
A grandmother is on the fence with the that.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
It's legality is actually questionable.

Most insurers require the person to have an insurable interest.
A grandmother is on the fence with the that.
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Then if the legality is questionable, why did anyone vote that the morality was not questionable? Normally, moral parameters exceed legal parameters, and certainly in this case.
 
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