How Much Life Insurance Do I Need?

If you are considering obtaining a life insurance policy you will have many questions that need to be answered. There are lots of different life insurance options to choose from and once you've chosen the type of insurance you want you also have to determine how much life insurance you need.

The question of how much life insurance do I need is not an easy one to answer and it's certainly not one that I can answer for you in an article on the Internet. What I can do with this article however, is to give you some things you can think about and some general guidelines to help you determine what would be best for you and your family.

There are many factors that will affect the amount of coverage that you need. Are you healthy? Or do you have pre-existing medical conditions that put you at substantial risk? How many people are depending on you to pay the bills? You'll need to have enough money to cover funeral expenses and estate taxes. You may want to have enough insurance to pay off your mortgage balance or credit card bills. If you have young children you may want to keep enough coverage to pay for their college education.

You'll need to consider your current living expenses minus your surviving relatives income so that you can have enough insurance to cover your families living expenses. You'll also have to estimate the number of years of income you will need. For example if your kids are in high school they will be getting jobs and moving out so you won't need as much as if your children are still in diapers.You also need to consider various tax issues in your estate planning.

As you can see, there is a great deal to think about when trying to determine the right amount of life insurance. It would be best to consult with a competent financial professional to help you figure out exactly how much life insurance you need. If you still want to get an idea on your own of how much life insurance you need before consulting with the professional there are many websites that have life insurance estimation calculators. Do a google search for life insurance calculators and you'll find plenty of these websites. Once you get on the site you simply fill in the boxes with the information that they ask for and when you get to the end they give you an estimate with a dollar amount telling you how much coverage you should have.