An Expense You Can't Skip If You Have Kids

How much would you pay to protect your family from a devastating financial blow? How about less than the cost of a soda from the vending machine at work? And yet according to a new survey featured in The Wall Street Journal, some 35 million households have no life insurance -- up from 24 million in 2004, according to research firm Limra. That one in every three households.

One reason for the decline: Many employees lost the life insurance coverage provided by employers when they lost their...