By
eHow Personal Finance Editor
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Things You’ll Need:
Step1
Contact your employee benefits office to determine your eligibility for dependent group life insurance and find out how much you can purchase on your wife.
Step2
Ask your wife, if she is employed, to find out through her employee benefits office if she has employer-sponsored group life insurance, how much coverage she currently has, and how much additional group life insurance she can buy.
Step3
Inventory all other available sources of group life insurance for which you or your wife might be eligible, including the Veterans Administration, professional organizations, and fraternal orders.
Step4
Assign an approximate dollar amount for child care, rounding up to the nearest thousand.
Step5
Determine the number of years it will take for your youngest child to finish a four-year college education.
Step6
Multiply those years by the gross annual income your wife now produces, rounded up to the nearest thousand dollars.
Step7
Sum those two dollar amounts to calculate the insurance need.
Step8
Add up the total amount of group life insurance currently in force on your wife, and then add any additional amount for which you might qualify.
Step9
Sign up for group life insurance during the next open-enrollment period to meet the calculated insurance need.
Step10
Apply for term insurance to make up any significant difference between group coverage and the calculated insurance need.
Comments
Hadley said
on 4/21/2008 Yes, an agent can do the work for you, but before you meet with an agent,
1. Use a life insurance calculator to find out how much coverage you may need.
2. Compare free life insurance quotes online to get an understanding of how much life insurance costs.
That way you will have some helpful information to review before meeting with an agent.
JRIngrisano said
on 12/15/2007 This is a lot of work. A better way -- this from a guy who has spent 35 years writing about life insurnce -- is to track down a reputable life insurance agent. The agent will do all the work at no charge. (And, no, I do not work for any specific insurance company.)