There are several things to consider here. What type life insurance policy is it? What is the surrender value? How much have you built up in the policy? You need to consider what you have paid into the policy for the last 15 years. The premiums are roughly $75 a month.

We don't have children, so no, no policies here, but I do know some people who have policies on their children. Not sure what the specifics are though.

It's wonderful your stepdaughter is doing so well and has exceeded what the doctors predicted. There are so many new medical findings/treatments almost daily - I wish her a long and healthy life.

tina

I don't know how much life insurance your husband has but I'm wondering who will care for his stepdaughter if he passes away before her. Who is the beneficiary of his policy? If it's his daughter will she need that money to live on? Do you work or have life insurance?

In our case we could afford the funeral expenses for our 3 children so we didn't buy any policies for them. They are now adults and since none of them are married or parents they haven't bought life insurance until they have dependents. I can't answer for anyone here but none of my friends or family members have bought life insurance for their children.

Thank you for your good wishes, tinam61.

The life insurance is term life, not whole, so there is no value built up in it.

DH's ex-wife cares full time for step-daughter, and step-son lives full time with us. We have a $100K policy on DH if he dies, that is payable to his ex-wife so she can support the kids until the youngest is 18 (3 years from now). This was required by their divorce decree.

There is also life insurance on him payable to trusts for the kids, so that step-daughter is provided for and step-son can go to college. And then we also have term life insurance on DH payable to me, so I can pay off the house should he die.

I work full-time and have a small amount of life insurance on me through work and through a policy we bought personally.

Thanks for the comments.

Although it might make financial sense to cancel the policy, that is really not what is going on with your DH. This is very emotional to him. It's his daughter and by canceling the policy he has to once again come to terms with her illness. Having the policy might help him emotionally feel that he is "taking care" of his daughter. Although you are able to look at the scenario in a very rational way, he probably can't. At $900 a year, I'd let him take the lead. You've brought it up and now it is up to him to make a decision, or not make a decision, as it may be painful to him. I'd say that there is too much emotion attached to this situation and the last thing he needs is to sit through some sales pitch from an insurance person about "gambling" on whether his daughter will die or not in the prescribed amount of years.

Wow, your question sure puts my (trivial) problems into perspective.

What happens when she turns 18, 21, 25? Can you continue the insurance policy? If so, would the cost go up so much that you would almost be forced to end the policy? The answer to this frames the issue more narrowly.

This is a delicate question, but does her life expectancy raise or lower each year she lives? Maybe it is an unknown, but, for example, with elderly people, the older they are, the more likely they are to live longer. By the fact that she has lived to 17, does she now have a better chance of living to 25 than she did when she was 10? Or is it a progressive disease with an almost certain end based on medical experience?

You certainly don't need to answer these questions here, but what it comes down to is whether your optimism regarding her lifespam is justified.

The ex-wife complicates the issue considerably because she will likely make many of the funeral decisions, but your husband will be paying the bills. The $900 is peace of mind that when the time comes, there won't be squabbles about finances.

$900 a year is a lot for some people; while for others it is a cup of Starbucks coffee each day.

Ditto what geogirl1 wrote.

Thanks for the additional thoughts. I know I explained things sort of clinically and coldly, but DH and his ex-wife are very realistic about these things and we often talk about the possibilities of the future. When you have a kid like this, you DO need to be very practical. For example, when she turns 18 next year, she'll need to be adopted by us (her mother is bowing out), otherwise, she'll become a ward of the state and we don't want that to happen. WE want to make the decisions about where she'll live and who will care for her, not leave that up to the state.

That's not to say that this isn't an emotional decision for DH, as has been pointed out. It certainly is, however, DH has had to remove himself from some of the emotion to make these decisions. The funeral is already planned, right down to who is doing what at the service - precisely so they don't have to worry about making those decisions when emotions are running high. There won't be a squabble about the finances, because we pay for everything as it is, even though step-daughter lives with her mother...we'll pay every last dime of the funeral, just as we'll pay every last dime of her existence until that point, and will do the same for step-son's college. That's just a given, since ex-wife has no money whatsoever (there was never any alimony required when they divorced, additionally she remarried before DH and I got married). Even though we foot the bill, in the interest of keeping the peace and out of respect for the kids, we do take ex-wife's opinions into consideration and more often than not, decisions are made jointly.

As suggested, I guess I'll tell DH to decide if we do more research into insurance or pay the premium for this year and see where that takes us. We do expect the premium to go up every year and no, we have no idea of what life expectancy looks like. It could be next week or it could be several years.

Sorry, looks like I've rambled a bit but wanted to provide a bit more context for the question. Thank you.