Life insurance protects your family's finances by covering debts and replacing income if you die. You need more coverage while raising kids, less once they're independent. Keep enough to pay off your mortgage, car loans, and credit cards, plus some for end-of-life expenses like hospice care.
Chapters
We pay for life insurance because we want to protect our family's financial security. We pay for life insurance to provide them with tax-free money to pay off home mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards, as well as to replace the monthly income they would lose if we are no longer here. But our need for life insurance will change throughout our lives. Sometimes we need more coverage. And sometimes we need less. We usually need more as long as our children are in school and entirely dependent on us financially. And we typically need less when our children are grown, out of school, and on their own. Probably just enough to pay off our home mortgage, car loans, and credit cards until we can afford to quit working and we retire on the income from our savings and investments. But we will always need at least some coverage even after we retire, if only to pay for our end-of-life expenses like home nursing or hospice care.