J. McCoy says
That depends on your situation and the type of life insurance you buy. If you are still young, your parents still have a life insurance policy on you, you have no debt, and no one financially depends on you, life insurance isn't worth it. The only other time that you won't need life insurance is when you have built up enough wealth that your family would be able to continue their normal life without you earning money anymore (called self-insurance).
Other than that, the simple formula says that you should have about 8-10 times your personal yearly earnings in life insurance. That can change if you have a lot of debt (such as a jumbo mortgage) or have no debt at all, have 4 or more kids, a very large retirement account, etc.
Term life insurance is the only pure life insurance available. All other forms are coupled with some type of investment. These insurance packages are never a good investments for your money. They are often sold as an investment for retirement. Truth is the historical average for whole life is 1.5%, universal life is less than 3%, and variable life is 5.5%. The statistical average on 401Ks and IRAs are higher and mutual funds have averaged at 11%.
The important thing to mention, it that you must invest. When your term insurance policy ends in 15, 20, or 30 years, you should be debt-free and have made enough from your investments to not need to buy another term insurance policy. Therefore being self-insured.
Insurance Basics says
The answer is-probably. But don't go with whole life insurance. It's too expensive, and the 'forced retirement' investment aspect of it is really not worth it. You'd be better off getting term life insurance, the cheapest kind, and investing whatever funds you have available yourself, in a diligent manner, for the long term.
In this way you'll almost certainly have more saved up over 20-30 years than the 'death benefit' that whole life promises your beneficiaries.
Variable life might fit you if you have some financial knowledge and can stomach some degree of risk.
You might take a look at this insurance guide for info on the basics. Good luck.
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