I actually have a insurance business and we do sell life insurance products. To answer some questions.. in most cases you cannot purchase life insurance on someone else without them signing the papers also! Parents can do this for their children under the age of 15 but there are very few other cases in which you can boy some without signatures. As for buying insurance for a child.. this is a good idea for 2 main reason.. the first of which is funeral costs... pick up any newspaper children unfortunately die every day as do adults... the average funeral costs around $8000-10,000! The other reason is to gaurantee furture insure abilility,meaning if they have a policy inforce while they are children and get sick/disabled later in life they will still qualify for life insurance. Some people can be uninsurable.... diabetes, heart problems,etc can make it very difficult for a person to get coverage!
So bottom line to me... Life insurance is a very necessary thing.. just imagine a world without it! Someone hits your car...so what you pay for it... your house burns down, so what...you pay for it and so on.
To the guy saying that all insurance companies , "screw" people over and dont pay anything! THe insurance industry is a HIGHLY regulated business,each state has an Insurance Dept that DOES NOT allow companies to just say , "we arent paying your claim" it has to be a valid reason(something clearly written into the policy) for a claim to be denied!! Trust me my company/office pays out hundreds of thousands in claims every year.... why just alone from the hurricanes in Louisanna and Miss. we have paid out around 81 million !!