How will mums support kids for uni, first car, first home?
As UK teenagers prepare to face their school exams, new research from Confused.com reveals that more than half of mums want to help their children pay university costs.
The comparison website surveyed mums and found that 60% would like to help their children meet the spiralling costs of higher education. With the current annual cost of living and study for a higher education student estimated at around £15,500 to £16,600 per year, and fees predicted to continue rising, parents may want to consider protecting their children by increasing the term of their life insurance policy.
The research also found:
55% of mums would like to help their children with a deposit for a house. (The average house price for first time buyers is around £160,000)
50% of mums would like to help their children buy and insure their first car. (Annual premium on car insurance for young drivers aged 17-20 has increased by 33.5%, and young drivers of these ages can expect to pay an average premium of £2,648 annually)
50% would like to help them with wedding costs (Average cost of a UK wedding is between £15,000 and £25,000.)
29% of mums would like to provide their offspring with financial support for travelling
Others would like to help with:
Paying for private medical care
Financial support to set up a business
Confused.com recently revealed that 48% of mums don't have any life insurance cover in place.
Commenting on the research, Matthew Lloyd, head of life insurance at Confused.com, said: "For many years the perceived wisdom has been to make sure life insurance cover continues until children reach the age of 18 or 21. It seems that attitudes are changing though, influenced by spiralling university costs and the desire to help children reach goals that often happen after this age. It's important that parents wanting to help their children achieve these goals consider providing protection through life insurance for their children until an older age.
"It's not at all surprising that mums want to help their children reach landmark goals, but it is a real worry that they don't have any life insurance cover in place to safeguard them should the worst happen. Life insurance and critical illness policies can also offer many additional valuable features for families that can be accessed at any time during the life of the policy, for example providing access to specialist medical information and advice or counselling services - they can be invaluable."