March 2018 How much life insurance do I need?

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How much life insurance do I need?

As we tell our clients the amount of cover needed is going to be different for every person. There are a lot of factors that first need to be taken into account before we can do a full risk analysis that can identify whether there is a shortfall in your personal insurance plan

Under the heading 'life insurance' there are 4 types of insurance cover:


  • Life cover – also known as term life insurance or death cover
  • Total and Permanent Disability cover (TPD)
  • Trauma cover – also known as Critical Illness, Crisis or Living Benefit and
  • Income Protection.


When deciding how much life cover you need, we have to consider what financial position you want to leave your family in if you were to die? For most of us our future lifestyle is planned around our annual income being available until retirement. But what happens if this income suddenly stops?

The majority of our clients have said that if they were to die they would like to leave no debt on their family home, and enough funds to generate some income for the family to continue to live comfortably. The ongoing cost of your children's education can be a significant factor in these calculations especially if they already attend or you are intending to send them to a school outside the Public system.

What if you were to become totally and permanently disabled and could never work again? Apart from repaying the mortgage and ensuring you and your family will still have some ongoing income, what will the additional cost be of your long term care? Does your family have access to funds to pay these costs?

Income Protection cover can provide you with a monthly benefit of up to 75% of your annual income (including employer super contributions) to age 70, depending on the policy taken. This can ensure that at least the mortgage and day to day cost of living expenses can continue to be paid until you can return to work.

If you were diagnosed with a serious medical event, such as cancer, heart attack, stroke, coma, major head trauma, severe burns, or meningitis, do you have access to money to pay for the treatment that is needed to help with your recovery? Trauma insurance pays a tax free lump sum amount on diagnosis of these and other events, and can be used however its needed – pay for medical costs and treatments, help with living expenses while you aren't working, cover a partners income so they can take time off to help you.

You can see that it's not as simple as choosing an amount of cover if you want to make sure that you and your family have the right financial protection in place if the unforeseen was to happen.

If you would like to discuss your personal insurance needs with our risk specialist please 
contact our office.

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