Life insurance needs analysis
“Needs analysis” can sound like a sales script. Here it means something narrower: write the assumptions in lines that another adult can read, question, and change.
This page emphasizes the DIME list and the coverage gap. A number with a visible mortgage assumption is easier to discuss than a number that arrived from a black box.
Coverage tally
Your planning range
Audit of your tally (midpoint)
| Planning range (midpoint) | — |
When this page helps
You want to prepare for a household conversation; you are taking stock after a major life change; or you need a simple list to bring to a licensed professional without starting from a product pitch.
When it does not
It is not a formal financial plan, an estate plan, or an insurer's needs-analysis document. Do not represent it as any of those things.
How it works
- Mark each line as must cover, nice to cover, or not needed.
- Check the time horizon behind income replacement.
- Decide separately whether the mortgage is a payoff goal.
- Compare the total with coverage already in force and write down policy end dates.
A new parent highlights education and ten years of income replacement The family may later lower education funding but keep the mortgage line
A pre-retirement household uses fewer income-replacement years, no education line, and a smaller mortgage The resulting need can change materially without a universal age-based rule
Common traps
Compare the next question
Questions
A practical analysis can include debt, income replacement, mortgage, education, final expenses, and coverage already in force. NeedTally keeps those items editable.
Related
This is a planning estimate, not insurance, legal, tax, or investment advice, and not a recommendation to buy a policy.