Sunday, March 28, 2010

How to choose the right amount of life insurance?

When setting up a life insurance plan you can usually choose any amount of insurance you’d like. So, how do you choose the right amount for you? We’ll look at five key areas people consider when choosing the right amount of life insurance.

Mortgages
For people with a family or who share a mortgage with a partner, life insurance is usually crucial. Most people in this situation choose to make sure they have enough life insurance to ensure their mortgage is paid off if they pass away.

Other debt
If you have debt that you would not like to be left to family or a partner, than including provision for this in your life insurance is a good idea. This makes sure that your partner or family are not left in financial trouble if you pass away unexpectedly.

Replacement income
This is particularly important for the main income earner in a household. If they were to pass away, there could be a huge financial impact on the other family members. For this reason, people often choose to add a sum for a replacement income into their life insurance. For example, a person might decide that they want to provide an ongoing income of $50,000 to surviving family for a period of 15 years (in many cases until children are grown). This makes sure that the financial impact of death is greatly lessened.

Education
A child’s education can be very costly. To provide for this kind of cost, an amount can be added to your life insurance – meaning that funds are available for education in the future.

Funeral costs
If you don’t have adequate savings for these, then you could choose to use life insurance to cover this expense. Also most life insurance plans have an immediate funeral grant – which can help with funeral and final costs.

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