Home Life insurance Life insurance basics How to make sure you have enough life insurance How to make sure you have enough life insurance View Carriers Please enter valid zip Compare top carriers in your area Written by Alisha AmbreAlisha AmbreAlisha Ambre holds a Bachelor of Arts with honours in English Literature and Media Studies. She focuses on crafting clear, engaging content that makes complex information feel practical and approachable for everyday readers. When she’s not writing, she’s likely on the volleyball court or immersed in a good video game.VIEW FULL PROFILE | Reviewed by Nupur GambhirNupur GambhirEditor-in-ChiefNupur Gambhir is the editor-in-chief of Insure.com and a licensed life, health and disability insurance agent in New York with seven years of experience covering insurance. Her expertise has been featured in Bloomberg News, Forbes Advisor, CNET, Fortune, Slate, Real Simple, Lifehacker, The Balance, The Financial Gym and MSN. She holds a BA in Economics from The Ohio State University.VIEW FULL PROFILESee moreSee less | Updated onAugust 28, 2026 Why you can trust Insure.com Quality Verified At Insure.com, we are committed to providing the timely, accurate and expert information consumers need to make smart insurance decisions. All our content is written and reviewed by industry professionals and insurance experts. Our team carefully vets our rate data to ensure we only provide reliable and up-to-date insurance pricing. For a deeper dive into our process, see our complete methodology. We follow the highest editorial standards. Our content is based solely on objective research and data gathering. We maintain strict editorial independence to ensure unbiased coverage of the insurance industry. To make sure you have enough life insurance, buy enough coverage to to cover your debts, your remaining mortgage, your children’s education and enough years of your income for your family to keep living the way they live now. Add those four numbers, subtract your savings and any coverage you get through work, and buy a policy for what’s left. Most people land between 10 and 15 times their annual income. Getting enough coverage is pivotal to protecting your family’s financial future. “Iinsurance should be the foundation of your financial plan,” says Matthew Barr, a licensed life insurance agent at Loyal Christian Benefit Association. LIMRA estimates 59% of U.S. adults own some form of coverage while only 51% say they do, so start by pulling up what you already have. Ask your HR department for the face amount of your workplace policy and find the death benefit on any policy you bought yourself, because that total is what you subtract before you shop for more. Buy the rest while you’re healthy. Insurers price on your age and your medical records, and one diagnosis raises what you pay for the rest of the term or ends your eligibility. Your coverage should last as long as your longest financial obligation If you have 25 years left on your mortgage, a 10-year term policy leaves your family exposed for 15 of them. Match your term length to your biggest debt or the number of years until your youngest child is financially independent, whichever is longer. How much life insurance do you need? Most people need at least 10 to 15 times their annual income, which puts someone earning $80,000 between $800,000 and $1.2 million in coverage. Multiply your salary first, then adjust that number up or down based on what your household actually owes and who depends on you. Buy toward the high end if you carry a mortgage, have young children, or your family lives on your income alone, because those obligations run for decades after the payout arrives. Buy toward the low end if your home is nearly paid off, your kids are grown, or your spouse earns enough to cover the household without you. Write down each number below, add the first four together, then subtract the last one to get the policy amount you shop for. Your annual salary times the years your family would need it. Count the years until your youngest child finishes school or until your spouse reaches retirement, whichever lands later. An $80,000 salary over 15 years puts $1.2 million on the list. Everything you owe outside the house. Credit cards, car loans, student loans and any debt a family member co-signed, plus funeral costs, which run into five figures for a burial and service. What’s left on your mortgage. Use the balance on your most recent statement, not the amount you originally borrowed. Paying the house off with the death benefit removes the largest bill your survivors would owe. College for each child. Multiply your estimate per child by the number of children, and check current tuition rather than what you paid, since costs have climbed since then. Coverage and savings you already have. Add any policy you bought yourself, and add the savings your family could spend without derailing retirement. Subtract that total, and the number left is the policy you shop for. When should I increase my life insurance coverage? Review your policy once a year, and any time something significant changes in your life. Coverage that made sense five years ago may leave your family short today. Marriage: Add your spouse as a beneficiary and reassess coverage to account for shared debts and combined financial obligations. Divorce: Update your beneficiaries immediately. Your ex-spouse remains the beneficiary until you change it in writing. New child: Increase coverage to account for childcare, education costs, and additional years of income replacement. Update before the baby arrives. Buying a home: Add your mortgage balance to your coverage calculation. Income increase: Your existing coverage may no longer replace what your family actually depends on. Recalculate. New significant debt: Any large debt your family couldn’t cover without your income needs to be factored in. Retirement: Coverage needs typically decrease here. Debts are lower, kids are independent, and savings have accumulated. Reassess whether you still need the same level of coverage. Beneficiary changes: Review after any major relationship change. A policy with an outdated beneficiary pays exactly who it says, regardless of your intentions. “All these personal considerations figure into the amount of insurance coverage you might desire. There is nearly always a way to adjust your insurance accordingly,” adds Golding. How can you get enough life insurance coverage without overpaying? Buy term life while you’re young, compare at least three quotes, and put the money you save on premiums into a retirement account. Those moves get most people full coverage at the lowest available rate and turn the savings into something they keep. Buy term life insurance. Term life gives you the highest death benefit for the lowest premium, and whole life costs several times more for the same payout. Invest what you save by choosing term. Set an automatic transfer into a 401(k) or IRA for the difference between the term premium and the whole life quote, scheduled for the day your premium clears. Skip that transfer and you spend the savings without noticing, which is what makes whole life look competitive by comparison. Buy younger. Premiums climb every year you wait and a diagnosis in between raises them further or ends your eligibility, so applying now locks today’s rate into every year of the term. Quit smoking. Smokers pay two to three times more than non-smokers for the same coverage, and 12 months tobacco-free lets you reapply at non-smoker rates or ask your insurer to re-rate the policy you already own. Compare quotes from at least three insurers. Companies grade the same health history differently, so the same person with the same condition can land in the best rate class at one company and pay hundreds more a year at another. Don’t rely on employer coverage alone. Group policies pay one to two times your salary and end when you leave the job, which leaves a family with a mortgage and kids far short of what they need. Pay annually instead of monthly. Insurers charge extra to split the bill into 12 payments, and one yearly payment removes that surcharge and the lapse risk that comes with a missed month. What to read next What is life insurance and how does it work? What happens to the cash value of my whole life insurance policy when I die? 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How to convert a term life policy to permanent life insurance Life insurance tax surprise: The unholy trinity How life insurance rates are determined How to do a needs analysis before you buy life insurance Sports that could knock you out of contention for life insurance Variable life and variable annuity sub-accounts: The more the merrier? Show more How much does life insurance cost? $500,000 of 20-year term coverage costs a 35-year-old woman in good health $290 a year and a 35-year-old man $343, according to Insure.com rate data. Term is the cheapest kind of life insurance, and whole life costs several times more for the same payout. Buy what you can afford now if the full amount is out of reach. A $400,000 policy pays your family $400,000, and waiting two years for a bigger budget risks a diagnosis that raises your rate or ends your eligibility. Buy a second policy later when you can afford more. Insurers let you own several at once, so $500,000 at 32 plus another $500,000 at 38 gives your family $1 million and keeps the lower rate on the first policy. “The vast majority of people in the United States are underinsured. People don’t understand that you may not be able to get life insurance in the future if your health changes, so you want to lock in a rate. The point is getting enough life insurance now,” says David Morales, a financial advisor at New England Financial. How do you avoid being underinsured? Having enough coverage keeps your family in the house, keeps your kids’ plans on track and replaces the money you were bringing in. Buy your own policy on top of the one at work. Group coverage pays one to two times your salary and ends when the job does. An individual policy stays with you at 50, when a new one costs far more. Match the term to your longest obligation. Count the years left on your mortgage and the years until your youngest child finishes school, then buy the longer of the two. Insure a stay-at-home parent for the cost of replacing their work. Childcare, cooking and household management run tens of thousands of dollars a year once a surviving spouse has to pay for them. Add a second policy when your income rises. Your original policy keeps the rate you locked in at a younger age, and the new one covers the amount you’re short. Recalculate after every raise, birth, home purchase and new loan. Each one raises what your family would owe and spend without you. Does life insurance keep up with inflation? Your death benefit stays at the number you bought and never rises with prices. Something that cost $100 in January 2015 took $138.23 to buy by July 2025, and a $500,000 policy bought in 2015 still pays $500,000 today. Size your coverage around what things will cost during the term rather than what they cost now. Use tuition estimates for the year your child actually starts college, not this year’s price, and count the income your family will need in the last year of the term rather than the first. Run your death benefit through the BLS inflation calculator every few years to see what it still buys. A policy you bought a decade ago covers noticeably less of the same mortgage, childcare and tuition it was meant to pay for. Frequently asked questions How much life insurance do you need after retirement? Less than when you were working, in most cases. By retirement, debts are typically lower, your kids are financially independent, and you’ve built up savings. Reassess what your spouse or dependents would actually need to cover remaining obligations, and adjust your coverage down accordingly. What is the lowest amount of life insurance you can buy? The minimum for most term life policies is $25,000 to $50,000, though some insurers start at $100,000. Burial life insurance policy offers the lowest amount of coverage for as little as $2,000. Most insurers offer term life insurance for a minimum of $50,000 or $100,000. How much life insurance does a stay-at-home parent need? Stay-at-home parents need coverage even without a salary. The surviving spouse would need to replace childcare immediately — and American families spend anywhere from 8.9% to 16% of their median income on full-day care for a single child. Add housekeeping, cooking, scheduling, and household management, and the financial gap is significant. Calculate coverage the same way you would for an earning parent: project childcare costs until each child turns 18, add household expenses you’d have to outsource, and factor in any future goals like college or a first home. × Get Free Life Insurance Quotes Today! Zip Code Please enter valid zip Age Age16 – 2021 – 2425 – 3435 – 4445 – 5455 – 6465+ Coverage Amount Coverage AmountUnder $50,000$50,000 – $100,000$100,000 – $200,000$200,000 – $300,000$400,000 – $500,000$500,000 – $1,000,000$1,000,000 – $2,000,000$2,000,000 – $5,000,000$5,000,000+ Coverage Type Coverage TypeWhole LifeTerm LifeFinal ExpenseNot Sure Gender GenderMaleFemaleNon-Binary Tobacco Use Yes No Compare Quotes Alisha Ambre . .Alisha Ambre holds a Bachelor of Arts with honours in English Literature and Media Studies. She focuses on crafting clear, engaging content that makes complex information feel practical and approachable for everyday readers. When she’s not writing, she’s likely on the volleyball court or immersed in a good video game. Related Articles What is term life insurance and how does it work? By Nupur Gambhir How to buy life insurance when you have high blood pressure By Alisha Ambre What is life insurance and how does it work? By Nupur Gambhir Life insurance calculator: How much life insurance do you need? By Huma Naeem What is final expense insurance and how does it work? By Desiree Ghazi Can you hide smoking from life insurance companies? By Alisha Ambre On this page How much life insurance do you need?When should I increase my life insurance coverage?How can you get enough life insurance coverage without overpaying?How much does life insurance cost?How do you avoid being underinsured?Does life insurance keep up with inflation?Frequently asked questions ZIP Code Please enter valid ZIP See rates 1-888-984-2609