Financial literacy activity
Insurance: Protection Plans
Build a block tower and cover it with a box — knock it over to see how the box protects it! That's how insurance works for families.
Materials and setup
- play money or coins
- dice
- toy animals or figures
- paper
- pencil
How this changes by age
Pre-K (ages 3–4)
Build a block tower and cover it with a box — knock it over to see how the box protects it! That's how insurance works for families.
Steps
- Build a tall tower of blocks together.
- Cover the tower with a box (that's insurance!). Knock the box over — the tower stays safe!
- Talk about other things that protect us: a helmet on your head, sunscreen on your skin, a raincoat in the rain.
- Talk about: families pay a little bit of money regularly so that if something big and bad happens, they're protected.
- Draw a picture of something that protects you (helmet, seatbelt, parent's hug, insurance).
Learning objectives
- Understand that protection prevents or reduces harm
- Connect physical protection concepts to financial protection
- Know that insurance is a way families protect themselves
Kindergarten (ages 5–6)
Talk about how families plan for things that might go wrong, and learn that 'insurance' is a special helper that steps in when something big breaks.
Steps
- When something breaks at home, sometimes a special helper called 'insurance' helps fix it.
- What would happen if our home flooded?
- Talk about how families plan for emergencies.
Learning objectives
- Know that insurance is a helper for when big things break
- Talk about emergencies a family might plan for
- Begin to connect planning ahead with feeling safe
Early elementary (ages 6–8)
Study types of insurance: health, car, home, and life. Understand premiums, deductibles, and claims. Run an insurance company simulation.
Steps
- Learn 4 types of insurance: health (doctor visits), car (accidents), home (fire, theft), life (helps family if someone dies).
- Learn vocabulary: premium (what you pay each month), deductible (what you pay before insurance kicks in), claim (asking insurance to pay).
- Simulation: run a pretend insurance company. Charge 5 families $10/month each. That's $50/month in premiums.
- Roll dice for events: if a family has a $30 medical bill, they pay a $5 deductible, and your company pays $25.
- After 3 months (3 rounds), calculate: did your company collect more in premiums than it paid in claims?
- Discuss: why is insurance important? What would happen if a family had a $50,000 medical bill without insurance?
Learning objectives
- Identify major types of insurance and what they cover
- Define premium, deductible, and claim
- Run a simple insurance company simulation to understand the business model
Upper elementary (ages 8–10)
Hear a real story about a family who lost something huge. Then run the numbers: what insurance would have cost, what it would have paid, and whether it would have been worth it.
Steps
- Watch (with parent) or read a short story about a real family that lost a home to fire, or a real person who had a medical emergency without insurance.
- Calculate what their loss would have been.
- Then research what insurance would have cost and what it would have paid out.
- Insurance is a bet: you pay a small amount each month so that if disaster strikes, you don't lose everything.
- Write 3 sentences answering: When is buying insurance smart? When is it a waste of money?
Learning objectives
- Connect a real loss story to the role insurance would have played
- Compare premium cost to potential payout to evaluate value
- Write a reasoned position on when insurance is worth buying
Safety and evidence note
Read the full activity before beginning. An adult should supervise tools, heat, food, outdoor work, movement, and experiments as appropriate. Completion records that the activity was done; the child’s explanation, work sample, photo, or demonstration is stronger evidence of learning than a completion check alone.
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