re: Opinions on life insurance for your kids?

About a year ago, I was discussing some things with my mom - she is single, doesn't have a lot of savings, has a paid off house, and will probably work until she drops. We did some POAs and stuff like that in case we need it down the road. She told me that my grandparents (now deceased) bought a life insurance policy for her when she was like 6 months old. There hasn't been a premium payment due in 30 years, she gets an annual statement. The death benefit is something like $17,000 and grows a bit each year. Not much, but enough to go towards final cost. She has group life through work but is probably uninsurable (at least at reasonable cost) with a private policy.

My wife and I both have riders on our group term policies at work for our two kids... I think mine is for 20K term per kid and hers is 10K term per kid... combined... we might pay a total of $5 per month.

About a year and a half ago, we started putting $50/month in a savings account at the local credit union for each kid, in addition, we put half of any monetary gifts they receive into that account (they can spend the other half). Obviously that's not going to be a lot of money by the time they turn 18. We've also thought about buying a couple of small life insurance polices for them as well.