Mothers should make sure that they have a critical illness or life insurance policy in place in case the worst happens, Legal & General has claimed.
The domestic work undertaken by mothers would cost £32,000 a year to replace, highlighting their importance to a household, new research from Legal & General (L&G) has found.
According to the firm, this is evidence that mothers should buy critical illness and life insurance, so that their families are covered if they fall ill. However, almost half of the UK's mothers have no life insurance, just a quarter have critical illness cover and only a fifth have income protection, L&G discovered.
"Families need to ask themselves how they would cope with all the domestic work and childcare that mum does if she wasn't around," warned L&G protection marketing and channel development director Alan Ferguson. "People shouldn't assume that extended family or the state will fill the gap."
The research showed that the "value" of a mum has gone up by more than £8,000 since 2005, when the company last performed a similar study. Women were found to spend 74 hours each week looking after children and doing household chores, with men only putting in 53 hours.
Women who are "full-time" mums put in even more time on average, totalling 82 hours per week, but women working nine till five still managed to put in more than men, with 55 hours.
