Life Insurance-How Much and When to Drop

[Anonymous]

I have mine set to expire when my younger hits 25...even grad school should be almost done by then.

[Anonymous]

I'm confused regarding why someone would drop life insurance. My husband and I each carry $1M (so $2M as a couple). Our kids are mostly grown. Wouldn't we still want to carry life insurance so that one of us would get the benefit when one of us dies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused regarding why someone would drop life insurance. My husband and I each carry $1M (so $2M as a couple). Our kids are mostly grown. Wouldn't we still want to carry life insurance so that one of us would get the benefit when one of us dies?

If you need it then keep it. If I can survive adequately without it, then why pay the premiums. I am not looking to get rich when spouse dies.

[Anonymous]

It seems as if paying $200/month or so is worth it to end up with $1M. Maybe I'm figuring the math wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems as if paying $200/month or so is worth it to end up with $1M. Maybe I'm figuring the math wrong?

Depends if you need the $1 million and how long you need to pay that premium in order to get it. If you have to pay the premium until age 90 then it's probably not worth it. Or if the premium level is going to expire at 70 and renew at a much higher rate then again may not be worth it. I look at insurance as just that - insurance in the event of an unexpected event that would impact family earnings. By the time I am 90, or even 75, we will hopefully no longer be working so the income stream will not be disrupted by a death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm (slowly) convincing husband to drop/lower his term life insurance. At age 60, even with good Fed Govt coverage, the cost skyrockets. I would recommend term only until all kids are thru college, then drop no later than 60. If college can be paid for otherwise, then if you need to drop sooner, drop when all are out of high school.

The Fed life insurance isn't that great, you can almost always do better with a private policy unless you have insurability issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused regarding why someone would drop life insurance. My husband and I each carry $1M (so $2M as a couple). Our kids are mostly grown. Wouldn't we still want to carry life insurance so that one of us would get the benefit when one of us dies?

If you need it then keep it. If I can survive adequately without it, then why pay the premiums. I am not looking to get rich when spouse dies.

This

[Anonymous]

$1m each plus work-supplied insurance. HHI is about 250K. I think we'll end it when kids don't need to be supported anymore.

[Anonymous]

We are in early 50s and have about $300K each - most of it thru work. You need to run a comprehensive calculator that includes what you would get survvivor benefits from social security. We each make around $150K. But we have a lot of money saved so like prior poster we are self insured. We have 3 school age kids and a mortgage that ends in 10 years and that is 1/3 the worth of the house. One interesting thing that happens is that no longer have to save for 2 peoples. The answer that you need 10x (or 8x) your income is great for insurance sales people but does apply to everyone.

[Anonymous]

I have the life insurance that my parents bought me when I was a baby. It pays about 50k.

[Anonymous]

HHI of around $800K

We have $7M in coverage, $6M term, $1M whole, all of it on me - DW cannot get life coverage due to some health issues which are hopefully behind us.


We are in the early 40s. Best think I could do for them is kick it at 64 when we have the money saved, and have them benefit from the payoff as well.

[Anonymous]

Cancelled it last year when we paid off the mortgage. Plenty of savings to tide the survivor over when the time comes.