Free tool
Life Insurance Needs Calculator
How much cover your family would need, in four numbers.
Life cover to buy
$1,025,000
$1,225,000 needed, less $200,000 already in place.
- Debt
- $25,000
- Income$75,000 for 10 years
- $750,000
- Mortgage
- $250,000
- Education2 × $100,000
- $200,000
- Total need
- $1,225,000
- Less cover and savings
- −$200,000
- Cover to buy
- $1,025,000
A starting point for a conversation, not advice. Income is not grown or discounted; the Human Life Value Calculator does that.
A parent signing a mortgage often wonders: if I were gone tomorrow, would my family be all right? This free InsureCard calculator answers with the DIME method: your debts, the income your family would lose, the mortgage and your children's education, less the life cover and savings already in place.
Updated
The formula
Need = Debt + Income × years + Mortgage + Education × children
Cover to buy = Need − existing cover − savings
Debt is everything except the mortgage: cards, car and student loans, plus funeral costs. Income is your yearly pay times the years your family would need it, often until the youngest child finishes school.
Mortgage is what is still owed, so the home is paid off. Education is what you would want set aside for each child. The result never goes below zero.
A worked example: $75,000 income, two children
A parent earns $75,000 a year and wants to replace it for 10 years: $750,000. They owe $25,000 in other debts and $250,000 on the mortgage, and want $100,000 for each of their 2 children's college: $200,000.
That is $1,225,000 in all. With $150,000 of cover through work and $50,000 in savings, the cover to buy is $1,025,000.
Why so many families are under-insured
In LIMRA and Life Happens' 2026 Insurance Barometer Study, 52% of American adults said they own life insurance, and 38% said they need it or need more of it: about 92 million people.
Cover through work is often a year or two of salary and ends when the job does. DIME shows the real number, so the conversation starts from a figure rather than a guess.
What should the education figure be?
Use what you would actually want to pay. The College Board's Trends in College Pricing puts average published tuition and fees for 2026-27 at $12,290 a year at a public four-year college for in-state students, and $46,350 at a private nonprofit four-year college.
Housing, books and travel come on top, so multiply by the years of study and add a margin.
For agents: open it with a client
Share the link before a review, or fill it in together on a call. The client sees where each dollar of the need comes from, and the cover you recommend has a reason behind it.
Questions
How much life insurance do I need?
Add your debts, the income your family would lose over the years they need it, the mortgage and your children's education. Take off the cover and savings you already have. The rest is a sensible starting point for the cover to buy.
Is 10 times my income enough?
Sometimes. The rule of thumb ignores a large mortgage, young children's education and the cover you already have. DIME counts each of these, so two families on the same income can need very different amounts.
Should I count life insurance from work?
Count it, but know it usually ends when you leave the job. If you might change jobs or retire before your family stops needing the money, consider leaving part of it out.