If you’re anything like us, you are still upset about Jack Pearson’s death on the NBC drama This is Us. The fact that we knew it was coming didn’t help much. We’ve spent almost 2 full seasons getting to know Jack as a loving and nearly perfect husband and father to his wife Rebecca and their triplets-the big three.

We don’t know about about the rest of the world, but we’ve been emotionally invested.

The show really tugs at our heart strings weekly, but especially so when they show a family being torn apart. After waiting and imagining we finally learned that Jack’s death was the result of a house fire where his family lost everything.

Once the initial sadness wore off, another side of us came out- and had questions. The insurance agent side.

As responsible and family conscious as Jack was, he surely had a plan for his family. Did he have life insurance? Home insurance? What is Rebecca going to do now?

You see, when Jack passed he had triplets that were 17, ready to go to college, and Rebecca had always been a stay at home mom. Did they have a home insurance policy to rebuild their family home that Jack worked so hard to buy for them? What about coverage for their hotel stay, their clothes, even their food? If he had life insurance, was it enough to send his kids to college and sustain his family’s lifestyle?

As we wait for answers in upcoming episodes, we decided to explore what these now very common policies would have provided for his family.

We know that the Pearson kids (the big three) were born in 1981. Since they were 17 when Jack died, we know he passed in 1998. For the sake of this blog, we are going to assume he bought a $250,000 life insurance policy, realizing the impact his death would have on his family.

The average cost of an instate college in 1998 was $10,000 per year x 3 kids x 4 years= $120,000. If he had in fact bought this coverage, he could have sent all three kids to a four year college of their choice, and still left Rebecca with $130,000. Based on the cost of living in 1998, this money could have potentially allowed her to maintain her lifestyle for the entirety of her children’s last year of high school and 4 years of college, without her having the added burden of a job hunt during such a difficult time in her life.

For less than $200/year after the birth of his children, Jack could have guaranteed their future, even after his death. Although his family would still be left with the sadness of losing him, they wouldn’t have been left with financial uncertainty and the added stress that brings.