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Mother’s Day, a time to celebrate and honor mothers and everything they do to care and protect their families, is coming up this Sunday, May 9.

COVID-19 has highlighted all the ways mothers care for and protect their families. For many moms, the pandemic disrupted their work and home life as they dealt with working from home, school closings and child care disruptions. It also added to their stress. While our research shows concerns are down across the board compared to a year ago, women are still more likely than men to worry about their families’ health and the duration of the pandemic. Less than half of women are optimistic that things will “return to normal” in 2021.

Another cause of stress could be a lack of life insurance coverage. While mothers are 50% more likely than the general population to worry about leaving dependents in a difficult financial situation should they die prematurely (47% versus 31%), new findings from the 2021 Insurance Barometer study reveal that 49% of mothers with children under age 18 are uninsured and 43% of uninsured and underinsured women overall believe they need more coverage.

The financial contributions of mothers cannot be overstated. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 70% of U.S. families with children under 18 rely on the woman’s salary. When you consider all of other the ways mothers support their families and what it would take to replace those services — from cooking and cleaning to caretaking and maintaining the household — it is obvious how vital mothers are to their families.

So why are so many uninsured and underinsured?
When asked, mothers were more likely than the general population to highlight financial constraints and a lack of knowledge as major reasons they didn’t have life insurance.

Our study shows 8 in 10 women overestimate the cost of life insurance and just 22% believe they are very knowledgeable about life insurance.

Now is the time to engage and educate women — especially mothers — about how accessible and affordable life insurance is. Getting more women fully insured will give them the peace of mind that their families will be secure financially if the unthinkable were to happen.

LIMRA is honored to lead the Help Protect Our Families campaign, an industrywide effort to raise awareness about the importance of life insurance and help carriers and distributors address the growing coverage gap in the United States.