When Sara Rintoul started her freshman year of college at the University of Florida, she knew it was her mom who got her there. Rintoul's mother, Thelma, had long been a driving force in her daughter's life, encouraging her to pursue and value the opportunities that come with education. But before Sara could even complete her first semester, she lost her mom to ovarian cancer in December 2020. She was devastated.
As she set out to process the enormity of her personal loss, Rintoul and her family took another unexpected hit when they learned that Thelma’s
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“My parents believed that the life insurance provided by my mother’s employer was transferable, and she could maintain it by paying an out of pocket cost upon retirement,” Rintoul says. “But that turned out not to be the case. My parents thought they were prepared and knew all the information. Had they known, they would have tried to do private coverage to be more prepared.”
Seventy-six percent of employers offer supplemental life insurance benefits for employees, and 69% offer life insurance benefits for dependents, according to data from the Society for Human Resource Management. It can be a key tool in supporting employees’ financial wellness, making sure that they (or their families) are economically stable when dealing with the death of a loved one.
“If you have someone who depends on you, or you have debts like school loans that maybe a parent co-signed, without that life insurance, those people are left exposed,” says Jessica Vanscavish, head of customer solutions for Prudential Group. “When you depend on someone else and when you depend on a stream of income from that person and it's lost, that's why you need life insurance.”
When it comes to planning for the future, plenty of employers and employees alike are most focused
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“It really is about figuring out, first and foremost, what your employees need right now and what they will need in the next 20 to 30 years,” Vanscavish says. “Employers can bring in advisers to educate employees about their benefits and help them understand how all the pieces of their benefits puzzle fit together to give them a safety net.”
For the Rintoul family, that sort of benefits education could have made an impact and allowed them to move forward after Thelma’s passing with clarity, as opposed to being forced into an unexpected financial scramble.
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“Even simple things like figuring out where funeral money was going to come from was difficult,” Rintoul says. (The average
The long-term implications of losing anticipated benefits were even more troubling for Rintoul, who had been anticipating that her mother’s salary would help cover college costs. When her mom’s illness worsened, both women expected that life insurance would provide at least some financial support for school.
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“I shifted my mindset to make sure that I was pulling my own weight as far as finding as many scholarships as I could to make it easier on myself and my dad, who still had all these expenses to pay,” says Rintoul. She ultimately received a number of scholarships, including the Life Lessons Scholarship from Prudential. Offered in partnership with nonprofit Life Happens, the scholarship helps students who have lost a parent afford college.
Now, as she plans for her future, Rintoul says she knows what matters most to her, but she also knows what to look for — and expect — from a future employer.
“Being aware, being educated, and informed by your employer makes a huge difference so you can plan ahead,” she says. “Nothing is permanent, and you really have to be an advocate for yourself and make sure you are prepared for anything that life throws your way.”
