Prepared in Love

The Fight No Family Should Have to Have

I am writing this page in the same days I have been making the drive back and forth to Savannah to pay on my own daughter's funeral expenses. I would not wish that errand on any parent.

I was told a complete funeral bill would be emailed to us. It never came. I called on Friday and was told it would be sent that evening. Saturday came. Then Sunday. Still nothing. So we loaded up the car and drove the two and a half hours to Savannah anyway — partly to pay, partly because we had been told there would be a family viewing on Monday at 2 PM, and my oldest daughter and granddaughters were driving down too.

Forty minutes out from town, the funeral director finally called. He was ready to send the invoice. I had been bracing to pay $8,525.00 — that was the figure her mother had told us, and what I had come prepared to cover.

The bill grew. The bill was added to. The bill swelled — as the news spread that Daddy was going to pay it in full. By the time I sat down with the paperwork, the total had risen to $10,718.50. A casket had been added. Other items had been added. Ten death certificates had been ordered — a number unusually high for a family without an insurance claim to file.

A grieving family should not be made to negotiate at a counter while the bill keeps moving. But that is what unprepared funerals look like.

A funeral in the United States usually runs somewhere between $7,000 and $15,000. In the rawest days of loss, a family without a plan ends up passing a hat, posting a fundraiser, or borrowing money they do not have. Watching that happen from a hospital chair or a funeral home office is its own kind of cruelty — and it is almost entirely preventable.

This page exists because no parent, no sibling, no grandparent should ever have to choose between honoring their child and keeping their footing. There is a kinder way. And it has to begin long before the worst day arrives.

It Costs Less Than You Think

Most people assume insuring a child is expensive — or even somehow improper. The truth is the opposite. Coverage for a child is among the most affordable protection a family can buy. Often only a few dollars a month. Sometimes just a dollar or two per paycheck.

There are three simple paths most families have:

Through an employer. A great many workplaces offer supplemental child life coverage that comes straight out of a paycheck for a small amount — frequently less than the cost of a single lunch each month. If you work somewhere with benefits, the option may already be sitting there, waiting to be checked.

A child rider on your own policy. If you already carry life insurance on yourself, you can usually add a modest flat amount that covers all of your children under one rider.

A small standalone whole life policy. A modest whole life policy taken out on a child secures coverage that follows them for life.

Coverage That Follows You

Take the coverage your job offers if you can. It is too affordable to pass up. But understand its one weakness: most workplace insurance belongs to the job, not to you. When you change employers, get laid off, or retire, that coverage usually ends or shrinks, and it rarely follows you out the door on the same terms.

So the wiser plan carries coverage in both places. Use the policy at work for what it is — a small bonus your employer is paying for. But anchor your family in a policy you actually own yourself, separate from any job. A policy you hold personally stays with you through every job change, every move, every season of life. No gap. No lapse. No scramble to replace it at an older age and a higher cost, just when you can least afford it.

Think of the work policy as a gift that may not last. Think of the policy you own as the foundation that always will. Together they make sure your child is never left uncovered — not for a single day.

Insuring Their Future, Not Just Their Loss

Here is the part I wish more parents understood. There is a second gift hidden inside a child's whole life policy, and it has nothing to do with death.

It is called guaranteed insurability.

When you insure a child while they are young and healthy, you lock in their ability to be insured for the rest of their life. That matters — because life happens. A child may, years from now, develop a serious medical condition. A mental-health diagnosis. A chronic illness. A hospitalization on their record. Without locked-in coverage, those things can make insurance for the rest of their adult life harder to get, more expensive, or in some cases impossible.

Many of these policies also let your child add more coverage later as an adult without a new medical exam. They get to buy more when they need more — to protect a spouse, a child of their own, a mortgage — without being penalized for whatever life has added to their chart.

So this is not only about protecting your family from the cost of a goodbye. It is also about protecting your child's own future — their ability one day to provide for a family of their own. That is provision reaching across generations.

“A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children.” Proverbs 13:22

The Coverage That Was Already There

Here is the part of my own story I want every parent to hear, because the same lesson plays out in family after family.

My daughter was covered by my medical insurance the entire time she lived with her mother. I was asked, more than once, to cancel that coverage. I refused. I told her plainly that the only way I would cancel it was through a court order. And behind that policy stood the veterans' benefits I am entitled to through my service, as a backup if the primary policy ever lapsed.

The cards were in both households. Her mother had them. My daughter had them. And when my daughter turned eighteen, the policy belonged to her — fully hers to use as an adult.

The coverage was used far less than it should have been.

I cannot tell you with certainty why a household with valid medical coverage chooses not to use it. What I can tell you is that, in some cases, using private coverage disqualifies a household from certain state benefits. That math is not the child's concern. The child's concern is that they get the care they need. If anyone in the chain of care for your child is choosing the funding stream that benefits the household over the funding stream that gets the child seen the fastest and treated the best — that is a fight worth having.

I will tell you how I know the coverage existed and was acknowledged. At one point, her mother filed a claim against my veterans' benefits asserting that I had not supported my daughter and that medical debt existed. When the file was reviewed, the truth came out on paper. I had not missed a child-support payment. I had been paying above the court order. I had been providing medical insurance the whole time. The claim was denied.

If you take one lesson from my story, take this one: find out what is already in place. And then make sure it is actually used. Insurance you already carry — medical, dental, vision, life, veterans' benefits, employer plans — is not a secret you keep from the other parent's household. It is provision you put on paper while you still could. Use it. Tell people about it. Make sure your adult child knows what is theirs to claim now that they are eighteen.

Do not let your family pay for what was already covered. And do not let anyone else's accounting put your child's care in second place.

A Note for Blended and Divorced Families

If your family is blended, or you and the other parent are not on the same page anymore, take an extra moment with one piece of this: the beneficiary line.

The beneficiary line on the policy decides who actually receives the proceeds if it ever pays. Not the will. Not whatever you assume. The line itself. If a policy was set up years ago with a beneficiary you no longer trust, or with a default that no longer fits your life, it can compound the pain at the worst possible moment.

Update it now. Name the people you actually trust to use those funds for the child's care or, God forbid, the child's burial. If you are not sure how the decisions in your home will land at the worst moment, please also read When Parents Conflict and Blended Families.

What You Actually Need

Let me be honest and clear, because this is where good intentions get confused. The purpose is not to grow rich off a policy, treat it as an investment, or over-insure a child. The purpose is one simple thing: that something is in place, so that no one you love is ever caught with nothing.

A small policy that exists will always do more good than a large one that was never bought. Start modest. Start affordable. Start now. What matters is that the plan is real before the day you would need it — because that day gives no warning.

A Word of Stewardship

Scripture does not treat the care of our households as an afterthought. It calls it a sacred duty — one of the plainest ways a parent's love is made tangible. To prepare quietly, while there is still time, is not morbid. It is faithful. It is one of the kindest, most loving things a parent can do for the people they will one day leave behind.

“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith.” 1 Timothy 5:8

I do not put this scripture down as an accusation. I put it down as an invitation — to act today, in love, so that those you cherish are never left to carry alone a weight you could have lifted in advance.