Life insurance that fits the years your family actually needs it

How much coverage you need

Rules of thumb such as 10 times income are a starting sanity check, not an answer. Add up the obligations that outlive you, then subtract what is already funded. The DIME framework is the fastest version:

• Debt. Everything except the mortgage: cards, auto loans, private student loans, medical balances, plus about $12,000 for final expenses.
• Income. Your after-tax income times the years your household would need it. A parent of a 4-year-old is usually looking at 18 to 20 years.
• Mortgage. The current payoff balance, not the original loan amount.
• Education. What you intend to fund per child, whether that is $30,000 for in-state tuition support or the full ride.

Then subtract existing life insurance, liquid savings and any employer group coverage you would keep. Group coverage rarely follows you out the door, so treat it as a supplement rather than a foundation.

Our coverage calculator guide walks the same math with a live calculator if you want the number on screen.

Two adjustments most people miss. First, a stay-at-home parent needs coverage too, because childcare, transportation and household management have a replacement cost that typically runs $30,000 to $50,000 a year. Second, if your plan assumes your spouse keeps working, check what one funeral, six months of grief leave and a mortgage do to that assumption.

Term or permanent: how to decide in one question

Ask when the need ends. If you can name a year, buy term. If the need never ends, look at permanent.

Term life covers a defined window at the lowest cost per dollar of death benefit. It pays only if you die during the term, which is why it is cheap and why it is right for roughly 80% of the households we work with. Level term also locks your premium for the whole period, so the 20-year rate you see in the table above does not rise at year seven.

Whole life guarantees the death benefit for life plus contractual cash value, and it usually costs eight to twelve times what the same face amount costs in term. That premium is not wasted, but it only makes sense when permanence is the point: a special-needs trust, estate taxes on illiquid assets, a business buy-sell agreement, or final expenses purchased in your 60s or 70s.

Indexed universal life sits between them. Cash value is credited using an index formula with a floor, typically 0%, and a cap or participation rate set by the carrier and subject to change. It can work as a supplemental bucket after you have maxed a 401(k) and an HSA, provided you fund it well above the minimum premium and you read the illustration critically. Illustrated returns are not guaranteed, and an underfunded policy can lapse decades later exactly when you need it.

Underwriting, exams and how long approval takes

There are three paths to a policy in 2026, and they are priced differently.

Fully underwritten means a paramedical exam with height, weight, blood pressure, blood and urine samples, plus a prescription-history and MIB check. It takes two to six weeks and produces the lowest rates, because the carrier is pricing facts rather than assumptions. If you are healthy and want $1 million or more, this is usually worth the wait.

Accelerated underwriting skips fluids for qualifying applicants and leans on data: prescription records, motor-vehicle reports, credit-based mortality scores and electronic health records. Decisions often land in 24 to 72 hours, and for applicants in their 20s to 40s in good health the price is now close to fully underwritten. Face amounts up to about $2 million are available at several carriers, subject to age and state.

Guaranteed and simplified issue asks few or no health questions and is priced for that. Expect small face amounts, a two-year graded death benefit on guaranteed-issue products, and premiums several times higher per dollar of coverage. This is a tool for people who have been declined, not a shortcut.

Whichever path you take, answer every question completely. The contestability period, generally two years in most states, lets a carrier rescind a policy for a material misstatement. An honest application that comes back rated is worth far more than a clean one that gets denied at claim time. For more detail, see our guides on the life insurance medical exam and on no-exam coverage.

What buying through PolicySherpas looks like

We are an independent broker, not a carrier. That means we shop your profile across more than 40 insurers, show you the rate cards side by side, and tell you when a cheaper carrier is a worse idea because of its underwriting niche or its conversion options.

You are never charged a fee for this. Carriers pay commission out of the premium they already filed with your state insurance department, so the rate you get through us is the same rate you would get going direct, with one difference: we are shopping every filing rather than defending one.

One last piece of housekeeping that costs nothing and prevents real damage: name a primary and a contingent beneficiary, use full legal names, and revisit them after every marriage, divorce or birth. A stale beneficiary designation overrides your will. Our guide to beneficiary mistakes covers the traps, including naming a minor child directly.