Insurance makes sense only if her death would create financial woes -- say, if you had to pay debts incurred for her schooling.
The sort-of-good news: Federal Stafford loans, the chief type of college debt, are forgiven when a student dies, explains Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org. So are Parent PLUS loans.
Only one in six private student lenders, though, automatically forgives a loan, he says; look for a lender's forgiveness policy in its loan contract. As with PLUS loans, a forgiven balance is taxed as income.
If you borrowed against your home to pay for school, expecting your daughter to pay you back, you'd also be on the hook, of course.
Should you take out insurance, your daughter's age should make it cheap. Expect to pay about $100 annually for a 10-year $50,000 policy from a top-rated company. 
| Financial impact of a $25,000 loan | |
| Home-equity loan | $33,000 |
| Tax bill on forgiven Parent PLUS loan | $6,250 |
| Stafford taken out by student | $0 |
| Overnight Avg Rate | Latest | Change | Last Week |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 yr fixed | 4.16% | 3.94% | |
| 15 yr fixed | 3.33% | 3.08% | |
| 5/1 ARM | 2.76% | 2.74% | |
| 30 yr refi | 4.00% | 3.93% | |
| 15 yr refi | 3.13% | 3.07% |
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