Ghosts hovering in the shadows, skeletons rattling in the breeze -- we spend thousands of dollars to scare ourselves at this time of year. But one quietly scary thing for adults is failing to prepare financially in the event of death. And during benefits enrollment open season, both benefits managers and brokers with voluntary benefits on offer would do well to remember it: life insurance. According to TermLife2Go, 41 percent of Americans don't have life insurance. And an SE2 survey finds that although 78 percent of millennials say their parents have life insurance, it's just a hair better, at 43 percent, among the younger crowd. Yet 65 percent "think about their financial futures daily," 23 percent say they'd have to file for bankruptcy if the primary breadwinner died and another 37 percent said that death would cause the family financial hardship. And saddled with debt of all kinds as so many are—college loans, mortgages, medical expenses, not to mention credit card debt, car loans and other sorts of financial obligations—that can be the kiss of death to a family if the chief (or only) breadwinner dies. Yet with so many people not having coverage against such an eventuality, those debts weigh like the sword of Damocles over a family's head. And of course one reason people might not be buying life insurance is that they can't afford it—or believe they can't. In fact, according to TermLife2Go, not only did 63 percent of respondents say life insurance is too expensive, "most people also overestimated how much life insurance costs—often by hundreds of dollars." Obviously that's not helpful to anyone, and a lack of education on the function and cost of life insurance appears to be part of workers' broader financial illiteracy. But the fact is that there is a correlation between median income and life insurance coverage, with—as one might expect—those making higher incomes also having more insurance coverage. Still, another insurer has another way to convince people to buy policies: incentives to live longer. The New York Times reports on Vitality, a pilot program from John Hancock Insurance, that rewards policyholders with premium cuts for "working to improve their well-being and providing details about the process." Vitality, about to become part of all John Hancock life insurance policies, will cut policyholders' premiums by up to 15 percent, provided they "report their habits on eating, drinking and exercise—or lack thereof." Some places, however, are just more prepared than others to take on that final destination, with plans in place in case the worst happens. TermLife2Go took a look at a number of factors to see just where residents are the most prepared (financially—one is never really prepared in other ways) for a death in the family. To see how well or poorly each state—and Washington, D.C.—was prepared, it ranked each by the average amount of life insurance coverage its residents had on the books as of 2016. It compiled the total face amount (dollar value) of life insurance death benefits across each state and "divided that amount by U.S. Census Bureau population estimates to get the dollar amount of coverage per capita. The higher the resulting amount, the better the state ranks…" Other tidbits of information considered: how much coverage people bought in a single year (2016), median income and how many insurance companies call each state home. That said, if you haven't already, check out the 5 states above that TermLife2Go finds the most financially prepared for death.