The objection is always the same. There is no income to replace, so there is nothing to insure.
The arithmetic disagrees, and somebody has actually run it.
What the work is worth
Insure.com publishes an annual Mother’s Day Index that prices the jobs a stay-at-home parent performs against Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage data. The 2025 edition put the total at $145,235 for the year, up 4% from $140,315 in 2024, an increase of $4,920.
The line items are itemised, which is what makes it useful rather than rhetorical:
- Childcare worker: $33,134
- Elementary school teacher: $24,156
- Other teachers and instructors: $13,768
- Community and social service specialist: $13,469
- Cook: $12,478
- Judge and magistrate, for settling disputes: $10,320
- Maids and housekeeping cleaners: $9,043
- Chauffeurs and shuttle drivers: $8,794
- Mental health counsellor: $5,584
- Laundry worker: $3,268
- Personal care aide: $2,624
- Meeting and convention planner: $2,003
The analysis works out to roughly 183 hours a week across the year, which is where the multiple-jobs-at-once nature of it shows up.
Take just the four that a surviving spouse would most obviously have to buy. Childcare at $33,134, cooking at $12,478, housekeeping at $9,043 and driving at $8,794 total $63,449 a year. Not as a metaphor. As a bill.
What actually happens after the death
The surviving spouse has three options and none of them is free.
Pay for the work. Full-time childcare for two young children runs into five figures a year in most of the country, before anything else on the list. This is the option that shows up as a direct cash cost.
Do the work themselves. Which usually means cutting hours, refusing travel, turning down promotion, or leaving a job entirely. That is a reduction in the household’s only remaining income, arriving at the same moment as the expense.
Rely on family. Which works for a while and rarely for years, and is not something to plan a household around.
All three are worse in the first year, when the surviving parent is also grieving and the children need more, not less.
The one-time costs on top
Separate from the ongoing cost of the work, a death brings immediate bills. The National Funeral Directors Association’s General Price List Study reported a median of $9,995 for a funeral with viewing, burial and a vault, and $6,280 for a funeral with viewing and cremation.
Social Security contributes very little to that. The Social Security Administration states that “a spouse might get a one-time death benefit payment of $255,” and that “you must apply for this payment within 2 years of the family member’s death.”
Monthly survivor benefits are a different and more meaningful thing, and a surviving parent caring for a child under 16 may qualify. But those benefits are calculated on the deceased’s earnings record. A parent who has not worked for pay in a decade has a thin record, which means the survivor benefit is thin too. The household loses the work and gains very little.
How much coverage to buy
Work from what has to be replaced rather than from a multiple of an income that does not exist.
Start with the years. Count how many years until the youngest child is reasonably independent. That is the period the household has to fund the replacement work.
Price the replacement. Not the whole $145,235, because a surviving spouse does not hire out every category. Childcare is the big one and it is real. A household needing $40,000 a year of replacement for ten years is looking at $400,000 before anything else.
Add the one-time costs. Final expenses, and a cushion so the surviving spouse can take unpaid leave without touching savings.
Add any debt in that parent’s name. Co-signed loans and a jointly held mortgage do not vanish.
Subtract what already exists. Savings, and any existing coverage.
For most households with young children the answer lands somewhere between $250,000 and $750,000, and twenty-year term is the natural instrument because the need ends when the children are grown.
Can a non-earning spouse actually be insured?
Yes. Carriers understand insurable interest here perfectly well and write these policies routinely.
Two practical points. Carriers generally will not issue a face amount on a non-earning spouse that greatly exceeds the coverage on the earning spouse, so if the working parent has $1,000,000 and the at-home parent is applying for $500,000, that ratio is unremarkable. And the application will ask about household income rather than the individual’s, which is the correct question.
What it costs is the same as any other policy at that age and health class. Average monthly premiums for $500,000 of twenty-year term run about $31 a month for a woman aged 30 and $47 at 40, on 2026 published averages. Against $63,449 a year of replaceable work, that is not a close arithmetic problem.
The mistake worth avoiding
Households often insure the earner heavily and the at-home parent lightly or not at all, on the theory that only income needs replacing.
The correct question is what the household would have to spend if this person were not here. For the earning parent that is the income. For the at-home parent it is the work. Both are real numbers, both have to come from somewhere, and only one of them is usually insured.
Apex quotes every case across more than 20 carriers, and running the numbers for both parents takes one conversation. If you want the arithmetic done on your own household, talk to a member of our team, or read how the coverage amount is worked out.
Figures cited are from published sources current as of 2026. Nothing here is an offer of coverage, and no policy is bound until a carrier issues it in writing.
