Quora Answer: How Much Life Insurance Does Someone Need?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “How much life insurance does someone need?” 

You need as much life insurance as you deem your life, your family, and your assets worthy of coverage.  The question that needs to be asked for life insurance is in the event of death, disability, or critical illness, how much does your family deserve of your income to be replaced?  How much do you feel you deserve to maintain a modicum of similar standards of living?  In the case of death, you are not buying because you will die; you are buying insurance because the people that matter to you will live on after your demise, the causes you support, the things you believe in.  That is what the money is for.  It is about legacy. 

In the same vein, when it comes to general insurance, you are considering if anything were to happen to your assets, how much do you need to cover.  When you consider how much you are prepared to lose, to loss, to theft, to damage, to tragedy and disaster, you are most likely going to take the most coverage you can afford.  When people look at premiums first, they are either the most optimistic people in the world, or they have not considered what they stand to lose.