Life Insurance
Calculating my life insurance needs
5 October 2021
Life Insurance can help give you some reassurance to live life confidently. Having the right level of cover can help make a big difference. Calculating ‘how much’ you’ll need to help provide financial support to your loved ones after you’re gone therefore requires careful consideration. This calculation of ‘how much’ can be a difficult one to get right.
Begin by asking yourself some important questions that will help you decide what cover fits your life stage, current and future lifestyle needs. You can get more information about a particular life insurance product via the relevant PDS.
Here’s a a step-by-step process to help you determine how much life insurance you might need.
Calculate your current financial commitments
What is your fixed cash outflow on a regular basis? Most of us have regular payment commitments that we need to pay to keep life going. Some of these might be:
- Mortgage repayments or rent
- Repayment of your car or personal loan
- Ongoing credit card repayments.
Calculate other costs that might fall on your family
Have you thought about how your family and loved ones will manage when you’re not around? You might want to make a list of all the things you currently provide for. These could be:
- The cost of putting your kids through primary/secondary school
- Monthly groceries and other ongoing food expenses
- Water, electricity, energy and other household bills
- Private health insurance costs
- Motor vehicle rego and insurance costs.
Add up all costs
Add up all these ongoing expenses to understand what your regular, ongoing cash outflow will look like. At this point, it’s a good idea to take away the things that you know you won’t need long-term and only keep the cost of things you absolutely require. This process will help you understand the kind of life insurance cover that’s right for your lifestyle.
If you need more help, you can also look to use the handy life insurance calculator. It’s an easy to use calculator that can help provide an estimate amount of life insurance that’s suitable for your needs based on your ongoing costs.
Contact Suncorp Life
Suncorp Life Insurance can help give you some peace of mind and help cover your future and loved ones. Give the Suncorp Life team a call on 13 11 55 or get a quick quote online.
Read more:
- What to look for in a life insurance policy
- Top tips when getting life insurance
- Should I wait to take out life insurance?
Suncorp Life Insurance products, other than in some circumstances the Redundancy Benefit, is provided by TAL Life Limited ABN 70 050 109 450 AFSL 237848 (TAL Life) which is part of the TAL Dai-ichi Life Australia Pty Limited ABN 97 150 070 483 group of companies (TAL). TAL is not part of the Suncorp Group. TAL uses the Suncorp brand (part of the Suncorp Group) under license. Any advice on this page in connection with the Life products is general in nature and is provided by Platform Ventures Pty Ltd ABN 35 626 745 177 AFS Representative Number 001266101 (PV). PV is part of the Suncorp Group and an authorised representative of TAL Direct Pty Limited ABN 39 084 666 017, AFSL 243260 (TAL Direct). General advice does not take into account your individual needs, objectives or financial situation. Before you decide to buy or to continue to hold a Life Products you must read the relevant Product Disclosure Statement. The Target Market Determination (TMD) for the product is available on our website.
