Answer:
Over the weekend, I was shocked to hear that my next door neighbour, who has three adorable children, lost her husband in a freak accident.
As someone who is a parent and has also experienced loss, I empathized with her and was relieved to hear that she had security against the loss of her husband's income.
But not everybody is so lucky.
Did you know that in America over 58% of families would not be able to cover their monthly expenses just a few months after a loved one passed away?
It is often only those life-changing events like the death of a loved one – or the birth of a little one – that cause people to think about their own mortality. People tend to think that what is unlikely to happen will not, and as a result, they expose their family to the hit of a lost income forever.
Explanation:
The consequence is that most people have what we at Swiss Re call a "protection gap" – the term used to describe the difference between the financial means one has and one needs – and it primarily affects the middle classes (those earning between $30,000 and $120,000 per annum). This gap has taken on gigantic proportions. In the US alone, the population mortality protection gap stands at USD 21 trillion, which works out to approximately 400k USD per household. In Europe, the figure is almost as large (USD 17 trillion).
The protection gap exists because people lack awareness about both the gap itself and ways to rectify it.
