There are a lot of people getting quotes for life insurance online. The quotes requested are usually for standard amounts of 50,000 to 500,000. The amounts requested often indicate that most people have not taken the time to calculate the amount of life insurance that they need. This often leads to early policy terminations because a real need was not established at purchase. It is very helpful to determine actual needs and then purchase amounts accordingly.
Basic Needs – Purchase an amount of life insurance to cover the basics.
1. Final Expenses – This your basic burial expense need. Choose an amount and enter it into a calculator.
2. Mortgage Balance – Add your mortgage balance to the final expense amount.
3. Short Term Debt – Add your entire installment loan and credit card balances to your final expense and mortgage balance totals.
Now you can purchase a basic need life insurance policy amount based on actual needs.
Additional Income Needs – The next level of a needs based plan might include a life insurance amount to replace income during an adjustment time period of your choice. You may want to leave your beneficiary a total of five years of your current income in the event of your death to allow your family the time needed to find other sources of income. You can now add this income need to the basics need amount to see if combining the two will fit into your budget.
Educational Needs – You can also purchase an amount of Life insurance for an educational fund. You can estimate future college costs based on inflation and then multiply the amount by the number of children in your household.
These are a just a few basic needs and reasons for the purchase of life insurance. It isn’t that difficult to do a mini-need analysis. You may save yourself some premium dollars because you have taken the time to determine how much life insurance that you actually need instead of purchasing a random amount.