The Life Insurance Foundation for Education has hired Molly Shannon to serve as the national spokeswoman for the group’s fourth annual Life Insurance Awareness Month campaign.
Shannon, who recently appeared as Aunt Victoire in the film “Marie Antoinette” but is best known for playing Mary Katherine Gallagher on “Saturday Night Live,” will work to draw attention to the campaign in September by telling television, radio and print reporters about her own story, according to LIFE, Washington.
When Shannon was 4, she was in a car accident that took the lives of her 33-year old mother, her cousin and her younger sister, Life says.
Shannon, her father and her older sister lived, but her father was badly injured and unable to work for several years.
Shannon’s mother, a teacher, died without owning any life insurance, LIFE says.
Shannon now has 2 small children of her own.
“My personal experience led me to start thinking about life insurance when I first became pregnant,” Shannon says in a statement about her stint as the Life Awareness Month spokeswoman.
In addition to participating in a Life Awareness Month media campaign, Shannon will speak Sept. 10 in Washington at the annual convention of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Falls Church, Va.