How Much Life Insurance Do You Really Need?

In my many years of working one-on-one with clients, I have learned something important about life insurance: There are no cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all answers.

Sometimes a client will call me, and say something like, “I need to purchase 100,000 dollars in life insurance”. My reply is, “How did you arrive that number?” I’ve found that many people choose a figure that “sounds like a good number”. No calculations were performed or any sort of estimations made… It’s just a figure that sounds like “enough” to them.

That number could be pretty close to their true needs, or it might be way off-base! Before you enroll in a life insurance policy, it’s important to determine whether the dollar amount on the policy is actually right for your situation.

Here’s a good rule of thumb: We take the breadwinner’s salary, multiply that by 15, and then add outstanding debts. This way you know that your beneficiaries’ needs are covered for years to come.

And, of course, your situation might be different from the norm, and you might have additional factors to consider. So let’s sit down together, run the numbers, and come up with a target amount of protection for your loved ones.