Term Insurance for Single Parents: A Mother’s Gift That Crossed the Stars

Elena Sharma was the kind of single mother who packed tiffin with a love note hidden under the paratha. She lived with her eight-year-old daughter Mira in a compact 2BHK in Pune’s Kothrud neighbourhood. Every morning, after dropping Mira at St. Anne’s school, Elena—a senior content writer at a fintech startup—would sip cutting chai at the corner tapri and think about the future. Not in a morbid way, but like any parent who is the only safety net their child has. She often discussed finances with her college friend Priya Krishnamurthy, a chartered accountant based in Bangalore. “I can’t leave Mira with nothing,” Elena would say over WhatsApp calls. “I need to build a wall around her, even if I’m not there.” That’s when she started researching term insurance for single parents. Not as an investment, but as a promise.

One humid July afternoon, Elena visited an insurance advisor in Camp. She was clear: she needed a pure term insurance plan—no Ulips, no bells—just a high cover at an affordable premium. After comparing policies, she zeroed in on a term insurance plan from a reputable life insurer: sum assured ₹75,00,000 (seventy-five lakh rupees), policy term 25 years, annual premium ₹27,800. The nominee was Mira, but since Mira was a minor, the insurer explained the concept of an appointee—a trusted adult who would receive the claim amount and use it for Mira’s welfare until she turned 18. Elena didn’t think twice. She wrote down Priya Krishnamurthy as the appointee. That evening, she placed the policy document in a brown envelope, along with a handwritten letter, and handed it to Priya during her next visit to Pune. “If something happens to me, this is how Mira’s school fees, her dreams, her everything will be taken care of,” Elena said, trying to smile. Priya hugged her tight. “Nothing will happen, you drama queen.” But she kept the envelope in her locker, fireproof and sacred.

Years passed. Elena’s health was always robust—until it wasn’t. A cerebral haemorrhage, sudden and brutal, took her on a Tuesday morning while she was buying vegetables from the bhaji mandai. Mira’s world collapsed. Her grandmother (Elena’s mother) came from Nashik, her aunt flew in from Nagpur, but the house felt hollow. Amid the rituals and the grief, practical fears surfaced: How would they pay the upcoming school fees? What about the home loan EMI? Elena’s savings would last six months, but after that, the void would become a financial abyss.

That’s when Priya stepped in. She took the envelope, contacted the insurance company, and initiated the claim. Because Elena had named Priya as the appointee in her term insurance policy, the process was remarkably smooth. Within 25 days of submitting the documents—death certificate, policy bond, ID proofs—the claim was approved. The full ₹75 lakhs was transferred to a joint savings account operated by Priya and Mira’s grandmother (the legal guardian). No courts, no guardianship certificate hassles, no delays. Elena’s foresight had cut through the red tape.

With the claim amount safely deposited, Priya, along with Mira’s grandmother, sat down with a financial planner. They created a simple roadmap: ₹15 lakhs in a fixed ladder for Mira’s remaining school and college fees (class 9 to graduation), ₹10 lakhs kept in liquid funds for daily needs and extracurriculars, and the remaining ₹50 lakhs invested in a mix of debt funds and conservative hybrid funds to grow for Mira’s future—higher education, maybe a wedding, maybe a startup. Every expense was tracked in a shared notebook, just like Elena would have wanted. Mira stayed in the same school, continued her Kathak classes, and never felt the financial rug pulled from under her feet.

When Mira turned 18, the remaining corpus—which had grown to around ₹82 lakhs due to careful investing—was transferred to her own bank account. By then, Mira understood the magnitude of what her mother had done. She often visited Priya in Bangalore during vacations, and the bond between them deepened. Priya never took a single rupee for herself, though Mira’s grandmother once tried to offer her something for all the years of oversight. Priya refused gently: “Elena’s term insurance was for Mira, not for me. I’m just the caretaker of her trust.”

Today, Mira runs a small design studio with two friends. She still lives in Pune, and every Sunday she video calls Priya. Sometimes they laugh about Elena’s terrible cooking; sometimes they cry about how much they miss her. But through it all, there is a deep, abiding security—because Elena had the wisdom to buy term insurance for single parents, and because she had the even rarer wisdom to choose the right appointee. The money didn’t just pay bills; it bought Mira the freedom to grieve without panic, to choose her passion, to build a life that Elena would have been proud of.

If you’re a single parent in India, reading this story, take a moment. Term insurance is not an expense; it’s the most unselfish gift you can leave behind. And while the sum assured matters, naming a dependable appointee—someone who shares your values and loves your child—is what turns that policy into a living, breathing safety net. Elena couldn’t control her fate, but she controlled her legacy. And her legacy, wrapped in a simple brown envelope, became Mira’s wings.