It's a growing reality that many of you may be personally familiar with: the return of the multigenerational home. And it's also an opportunity for insurance agents.

According to a recent Pew Report as reported in the Washington Post:

The number of people living with several generations under one roof in the United States is at its highest point in 50 years, as families cope with ruinous job losses and foreclosures…

During the first year of the recession, the number of Americans living in such multi-generational families rose by 2.6 million, or more than 5 percent, from 2007 to 2008.

Now 49 million Americans — 16.1 percent of the population — live in homes with multiple generations. Many include adult children in their 20s…

Young adults are less likely to be married than they once were. The typical age of first marriage is five years later than it was in 1970 — 28 for men and 26 for women…

In a tough job market, many still live with their parents. Pew'sanalysis showed that 37 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds in 2009 were either out of the workforce or unemployed, a nearly four-decade high. The figure includes some college students.

According to the report, the multigenerational trend has been growing since the 1980s, in part because of the economy, but also because multigenerational homes are common for many ethnic groups.

It certainly wasn't weird for my family. My parents were married right after World War II, and due to the lack of jobs and housing, went to live with my Italian grandmother in her two-flat on Paulina Street in Chicago. Turnaround is fair play: when my parents moved to the suburbs, Grandma came with and lived with us for many years. At one point, so did my Uncle Jimmy and my cousin Millie. It was pretty fun having a childhood in what amounted to a boarding house. Likewise, after I married and had kids, and my mother died, my father came to live with us.

But the recession is what's really driving the current trend. One of my best friends currently has her late-20s son, his wife, and two toddlers living with her and her husband. Other households include unmarried, recently graduated children in their early 20s who can't find jobs.

For independent insurance agents, this trend is just another way to solidify your relationship with your customers. With so many of you now writing personal lines coverage — or doing so to round out a favored commercial client — it pays to ask some probing questions come renewal time.

Things to think about:

How many additional drivers are on the client's auto policy?
With more people living in the home — including the elderly and small children — should the customer increase his/her homeowners' liability limits?
Is anyone living in the household running an at-home business (child care, consulting, etc.)? What additional insurance coverages are needed to protect the homeowner and the consultant?
Is the home being used for the storage of additional property, such as furniture, cars, or “toys” like boats and motorcycles? Is additional coverage needed to protect these items?
Is everyone in the household covered under some form of health insurance? If not, can you advise them about changes in the healthcare law that will make coverage available to them? And for now, are there options available to them under COBRA or other sources?

The creative agent/broker can come up with many more.

What are your customers telling you about changed conditions in their living situations? And what other coverage questions come up in relation to a multigenerational household?

Special Reports /

Toops Scoops: The Multigenerational Revolution

Related Stories

Recommended For You