• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Wealth Pilgrim

No Money Worries. No Matter What.

Neal Frankle featured in
  • Home
  • Life Insurance
  • Investing
    • Build Strong Investment Building Blocks To Avoid Going Broke In Retirement
    • Systematic Mutual Fund and ETF Investing
    • Stock Market Investing Guide
    • Choosing the Right Investment Brokerage Guide
    • How Bonds Work Guide
    • How Banks Really Work Guide
    • Annuities – What You Need To Know Before You Invest
    • A Beginners Guide To Buying Individual Stocks
    • Create A Pool Of Great Mutual Funds and ETFs To Pick From To Secure Your Retirement
    • ETF and Index Fund Investment Guide
  • Earn More
  • Banking
  • Retirement Planning
    • Retirement Guide
  • Ask Neal a Question
  • Reviews
    • Upgrade Personal Loans Review
    • Lending Club Review
    • Prosper Review
    • Ally Invest TradeKing Review
    • CIT Bank Review
    • LegalZoom Review
    • Lexington Law Review
    • Airbnb Host Review
    • Should You Drive For Uber?
  • Tax
  • Courses
    • Raise Your Credit Score So You Can Buy a House – Free Video Course

How To Buy Life Insurance And Save 70%

by Neal Frankle, CFP ®, The article represents the author's opinion. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure for more info.

If you already have life insurance, that’s wonderful.  But do you have the right kind?  And even if you do, are you spending too much for it?  Very few people know how to buy life insurance the right way.  The good news is, there is only one key to unlock big savings (even though most people overlook it and most agents fail to tell you about it.)

Of course you can save a ton of money by purchasing term rather than whole life, but that’s only the start of the savings parade. The big savings comes when you buy the right amount for the right time period from the right company as you’ll see.  As I said, very few agents ever explain this to consumers and as a result people waste way too much money. After reading this post, you won’t have to worry about that anymore.

The Key

When you think about life insurance think income replacement. The reason you want to create a large death benefit for your survivors is so that they can invest that plump lump sum and create the income they’ll need when you are not around.

How Much Term Life Do You Need?

Everyone has a different situation but here’s a very reliable rule of thumb which I’ll demonstrate by way of example. Let’s say you earn $75,000 a year and want to buy term coverage to replace your income in case you die prematurely. Using the “4% rule”, you need $1,875,000 of coverage. What is the “4% rule” and how did I derive the $1,875,000?

Remember that if you pass away, your heirs will have to invest the insurance benefits in order to receive income. For our purposes, let’s assume they invest the money in a balanced mutual fund rather than stick it in the bank earning nothing. Let’s further assume that this fund returns, on average 6% over the long-run.

The “4% rule” simple states that if your heirs invest the death benefit in a balanced fund, they can withdraw 4% of the principle over a long period of time, adjust that withdrawal up for inflation, and the odds of running out of money are very low. (Withdrawal rates and investments are a topic of its own and you if you want more information about that just follow the preceding link.)

So if you need to replace $75,000 a year and can earn 4%, divide $75,000 by 4% to find your answer. If you do the math, you’ll see that in this case you need to have $1,875,000 to invest. That’s how much insurance you need right now assuming you have no other assets. (I’ve written more about how to determine how much insurance you need so you can follow that link if you want to read more.)

But this isn’t the end of the story. It’s gets a bit more complicated. But that’s also where you save the big bucks.
You see, your needs change over time. This happens for two reasons:

1. Your income and spending change over time. Generally, as your family’s spending rises, you need more life insurance. That’s because it will take a higher lump sum investment to create the income to cover that increased spending. But there is flip side of this (and it is critical). Once your spending declines, you will need less life insurance. Sweet.

2. As your investments grow, those investments will be able to provide more income. In other words, as your net worth grows, you can “self-insure” to a greater extent. Since you can create passive income with your investments, your need for life insurance declines. Make sense?

You can apply both these rules to your own situation and save a truck load of money.

I have prepared an example of this to see exactly how this works. Once you see that example, you’ll see how to apply this concept in your own situation.

 

Tweet
Pin
Share1

Reader Interactions

User Generated Content (UGC) Disclosure: Please note that the opinions of the commenters are not necessarily the opinions of this site.

Comments

  1. Noel says

    March 6, 2015 at 1:59 AM

    This is interesting calculations. Although I didn’t think of it, I was targeting 2 million (same income group you take into account here), but I was asked by the insurance agent of my net worth and he mentioned that you can not be insured more than that.
    I was like, what if I lie to you, then the insurance company makes a best guess from your data floating around with different agencies. Is that true?

    So finally, I settled for a million.

    Reply
    • Neal Frankle, CFP ® says

      March 13, 2015 at 2:23 AM

      Noel, lying on an insurance application is a very risky move. If the company discovers the lie, they can decide NOT to pay the claim and just refund premiums paid. Don’t take that chance Pilgrim!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Are You Human? * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

Primary Sidebar

Who is Neal Frankle

Neal Frankle

I'm a Certified Financial Planner™ with more than 25 years of experience. I feel very blessed and hope to share my personal financial experience and professional wisdom with readers of WealthPilgrim.
Read More »

Stay Connected

Facebook Twitter YouTube RSS

More Categories

Career Development
College Funding
Credit Cards
Credit Score Fixes
Money and Marriage
Debt Relief
Estate Protection
Property Investment Loans
Small Business Strategies
Spend Less Money

Most Helpful Posts

  • Term vs Whole Life - Which Is Best For You?
  • Who Should Buy Guaranteed Life Insurance?
  • Is Life Insurance For Children A Good Idea?
  • How To Get The Cheapest Term Life Insurance
  • How To Get Inexpensive Senior Term Life Insurance
  • How To Buy Term Life And Save 70%
  • Do You Need Life Insurance At All? Maybe Not.

Disclaimer

Wealth Pilgrim is not responsible for and does not endorse any advertising, products or resource available from advertisements on this website. Wealth Pilgrim receives compensation from Google for advertising space on this website, but does not control the advertising selection or content. Please do the appropriate research before participating in any third party offers. The information contained in WealthPilgrim.com is for general information or entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice. Please contact an independent financial professional for advice regarding your specific situation. Wealth Pilgrim does not provide investment advisory services and is not a registered investment adviser. Neal may provide advisory services through Wealth Resources Group, a registered investment adviser. Wealth Pilgrim and Wealth Resources Group are affiliated companies. In accordance with FTC guidelines, we state that we have a financial relationship with some of the companies mentioned in this website. This may include receiving payments,access to free products and services for product and service reviews and giveaways. Any references to third party products, rates, or websites are subject to change without notice. We do our best to maintain current information, but due to the rapidly changing environment, some information may have changed since it was published. Please do the appropriate research before participating in any third party offers.


About · Contact · Disclaimer & Privacy policy

Copyright © Wealth Pilgrim 2019 All Rights Reserved