Case Study: Struggling Families Risk Living Without Life Insurance...

Sunday, September 26, 2010
By Tim Grant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pam Panchak/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Emily O'Donnell, a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, had to postpone her plans for college after her father died of cancer. She says that life insurance would have eased the burden on her family.

When her father died three years ago from cancer, Emily O'Donnell had to postpone her plans for college because she no longer could afford to go. She and her three siblings were hit hard by her father's death, and the ramifications affect them all to this day.

"If my father had held a life insurance policy, it would have certainly eased the burden on my family," said Ms. O'Donnell, a 24-year-old sophomore studying film and communications at the University of Pittsburgh.

"My siblings and I continue to struggle with money every day, each of us supporting ourselves and each other as much as possible," she said, adding that she works two jobs and relies on student loans to pay college expenses.

Life insurance would not only have helped her, her two sisters and brother get a head start in life, but also it would have gone a long way in helping to pay for their father's hospital bills and his funeral expenses.

"To this day, we still cannot afford even to have his name engraved on his headstone," Ms. O'Donnell said...

"Life insurance isn't for those who die. It's for those who live," said Jack Dewald, chairman of the nonprofit Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education. "You'll never meet with a widow who complains that their spouse had too much life insurance."


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