My advice: Plan ahead and lock in what you’ll need at age 65 when you are 35 using a term 30. Add in a few shorter term plans as kids are born to cover the “hump” around 40-50 when your spouse will really need the $$$ for college, income replacement, etc, and let them lapse as the kids go out on their own. That’s why I call it a hump: your insurance needs rise and fall in a sort of bell curve centered around 40-45. You could also do a little permanent insurance (maybe 100K max) just so you dont go down to zero at 65+.

Then eat right, exercise, drive carefully, and plan to spend a long life with your spouse!

Even though your wife is currently self-sufficient as far as income, you probably should ignore that when buying insurance. Assume instead, that your family will be fully dependent on your income at the time of your death.

Insurance is a bet on the “what if” question/scenario, so you should plan for the worst case scenario. Since your child was just born, you have to consider that all kinds of scenarios are possible, and you need to consider the next 20-25 years in your planning. That’s a long time horizon.

I appreciate the response!

Since I submitted the article, I went ahead and maxed out my company’s insurance policy. As mentioned in the article, I’m covered for $500k for $11/month. I have not yet seen anything this cheap with an outside carrier.

Also, I am in the middle of purchasing a $100k 30-year term policy for $22/month through State Farm. My auto and home insurance are there as well, so I’m getting a *small* discount on my auto and home policies.

All in all, I agree with the comments in the article. I finally decided to just stick with a term policy. If I need to, I can “stagger” more policies later on in life.

My husband and I are in our mid-late 20s, have no kids, can live off of one salary if necessary, have stable jobs, have a $11,000 car note, and we have a $73,000 mortgage.

I get my short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance ($100,000) through my job for less than $14 a biweekly paycheck. My husband gets his life insurance through his job and is adding both disabilities during his next open enrollment period.

This makes since to me since our jobs are stable, we have no kids, and we are building enough cash reserves that we won’t need insurance at all in 15 years or less. We are only insured for $100,000 since that will cover the mortgage and car…we’re ok with providing for ourselves if the need arises.

In short, we see insurance as backup and aren’t worrying about it too much. It would be the end of my emotional world if my husband dies, but I’d be fine financially…all we use insurance for is to get rid of the debt burden so the survivor can take extra time off if needed.

Obviously, we’d need more if we had kids or a giant mortgage or something, but I’m taking advantage of our specific situation.

Also your home insurance company, retirement company, and bank may all offer life insurance if you want to stick with someone you know.

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