To Life! To Life! L'chaim!

[Pheidippides]

Open enrollment for benefits at work has rolled around again, and it's got me thinking about all sorts of stuff. Like life insurance. I've got a healthy policy through work (fairly inexpensive) but am wondering if I should supplement it even more. I am curious to see how much life insurance those of you around here have.

I understand there may be some sensitivity around amount, but I would also be interested to hear how you arrived at the figure you did. I arrived at mine by doing the "motorcycle + road running in the dark = buy a buttload" calculus.

[landpoke]

Just enough to make sure things are taken care of but not so much that I'm worth more dead than alive.

I actually probably need to add some more. It's a delicate balance because I'm pretty sure the wife would take a big wad of filthy lucre over me. And I don't want her to get to thinking.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I have about $1M in term life insurance. This includes my max coverage at work plus an additional policy that I added on. I got the add-on policy about ten years ago with a 20-yr flat rate that seemed like a good deal. I have an additional $700K or so in accidental death coverage.

If I die, I want my wife to be able to continue as a single parent without too much financial stress. She would have plenty of other stresses to deal with.

I plan on tapering down my coverage as we get older. As our net worth goes up and as the kids start to leave the nest, the risk goes down.

[Clark Addison]

I have about $700K through work, plus about $500K in AD&D. I think that is probably a little low, and have been thinking for a few years now of picking up another $500K or so in a term policy, but I haven't yet, as that would force me to confront my own mortality.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I bought two policies ($250K whole life and $750 term) twenty years ago. The whole life policy is now paid up and I pay a relatively small amount for the term. I'll keep the term for another seven years or so (until our youngest is through with a mission and college) then probably drop it. I'll be close to 65 then and I expect the rates to climb rapidly.

I agree with the others that you should have enough to allow your family to get along without you, but not so much that they look forward to your departure. Mrs. PAC has enough incentives to do me in.

[Pheidippides]

Thanks guys. Looks like I'm about in the same range as y'all (I just upped to a $1M life with the same in AD&D). I have been worrying about this stuff for some time because I want to make sure family needn't worry. Also, I saw an episode or two of Weeds last week.

[Levin]

I'm relatively young, and with three kids 5 and under, I took out a $2 million term policy on which I pay a flat rate for 10 years. My work also supplies some, but I'm not sure how much.

These next ten years would be the most crucial for my wife if I went to the great beyond, and the policy would provide enough that she could live without any extra financial support (though she'd get remarried again in a heartbeat).

[JohnnyLingo]

(though she'd get remarried again in a heartbeat).

Wow, does she already have someone lined up?

[Jarid in Cedar]

I am worth far too much dead for my good. Most of what we have insurance-wise is "buy-sell" for the business for 2.5 mil( as a mechanism to pay my portion of building debt and to buy the surviving spouse out of the business), but I have personal policies outside of the business that total 1.5 mil.

[Levin]

Wow, does she already have someone lined up?

PELAGIUS!!!! Please reprimand him for this disgusting attack on my wife, insuating that she is stepping out on me.

It seems to me that we should be above such spousal attacks, and we'd be better off if we would refrain from making such statements [[insert three or four more conditional statements using the plural "we".]]