How much life insurance do I need? In order to answer that question, you first need to answer several others. Here, you will see a number of questions, as well as a brief explanation of why those questions are relevant.

Do you have dependent children?  How old are they? For parents, the primary determinant for how much life insurance they need is the number of children that they have and the number of years before those children will be able to provide for themselves.  If you are the major earner in the family, you can calculate your expected annual earnings for the number of years that it would take for the kids to finish college.  That would give you a beginning figure.

Let’s say that you earn $100,000 per year.  You want your family to be able to live in the same manner after your death as they did before.  You have two children under the age of five and your wife’s earnings are limited.

That means that for 17 years, your kids will need support.  With just that simple calculation, you can easily see how a million dollar life insurance policy is not unreasonable.


Do you want your death benefit to pay off your mortgage?  The answer for most people is “yes”.  To make things easier on a surviving spouse, providing enough life insurance to pay off the mortgage is a crucial step. The mortgage payment takes the biggest chunk out of a family’s monthly budget.

Do you want to provide for your children’s education?  If so, then you need to include at least another $30,000 per child.

What about your final expenses?  In addition to the figure that you have right now, you need to add at least another $14,000 to cover your final expenses, burial, medical expenses, etc.

You may have other debts to consider, as well, but in some cases, you can obtain insurance from the creditor that will pay off the debt, in the event of your disability or death.  Basically, how much you need depends on how well you want to provide for your beneficiaries.

The Internet has made it easy for us to compare quotes and calculate the amount of life insurance that you need.  Many companies have interactive websites that allow you to enter the answers to the questions that you have seen here and come up with a dollar amount with very little effort.

To see how little you could be paying please get a free life insurance quote below: