In my previous article, we learnt whether you need Term Insurance or not. If you have reached to the conclusion that you need Term Insurance, the next question is how much Term Insurance should you opt for? Is there any thumb rule that needs to be followed while purchasing Term Insurance cover? Should I purchase it based on my annual income OR Should I purchase it based on my annual expenses? Let’s address these questions one by one.

If you are looking for an answer in one sentence, my response would be –

Term Insurance = [Annual Income *20 + Liabilities (Loans)] – Assets (FDs, Mutual Funds, all properties excluding self-occupied home, and any other investments)

This will be the amount of term insurance cover that you will require.

I’m sure most of you must have seen advertisements on Facebook, Google, Instagram, print media, or on television about insurance companies promoting Term Insurance cover of 1 Crore. Does that mean is 1 Crore the benchmark for purchasing Term Insurance cover? The answer is No, it is not.

Let me explain to you why most life insurance companies often advertise cover of 1 Crore.

Remember, life insurance companies are targeting the masses with their advertisements. These companies can show insurance coverage of 2/3 Crores but for that, they need to do very target marketing i.e., high-income individuals. This is exactly the reason why most insurance companies show advertisements for 1 Crore Term Insurance cover, which is to cover the masses.

Coming back to the question, is there any thumb rule to calculate how much Term Insurance cover you should buy?

No, there is no thumb rule and it is entirely dependent on your income, expenditure, and your assets.

However, there is a thumb rule for insurance companies on how much insurance coverage they can provide to any individual, which I will explain later.

If there is no thumb rule, how do we calculate the requirement? Let’s see, how to calculate the insurance cover requirement.

Every human being has an unlimited earning potential. You may be starting your job with a monthly salary of 25,000 per month but 10 years down the lane, you may be earning 2.50 Lakhs per month or it may be 25 Lakhs per month. Ideally, there is no way to calculate Human Life Value (HLV) but still, it needs to drill down to a certain number to manage risk for the family, if any unfortunate event happens to the breadwinner of the family. That’s where the role of income replacement and expenses replacement methods comes into the picture to calculate the Term Insurance cover requirement of an individual.

There are 2 methods of calculating the insurance requirement for an individual:

Let’s discuss these 2 methods one by one.

There are 3 variables that are required to calculate insurance cover through the income replacement method –

Let me give you an example here – Example 1

Ajay is 35 years old and is earning a salary of 1 Lakh per month. He wants to retire at the age of 60. What would be the insurance requirement for Ajay?

In this example, Ajay’s Annual income = 1 Lakh * 12 Months = 12 Lakhs Per annum

Gap between retirement age and current age = Retirement age – Current Age = 60 Years – 35 Year = 25 Years

Term Insurance cover required = Gap between retirement age and current age X Annual income i.e. 25*12 = 300 Lakhs = 3 Crores

This is a very simple method to calculate the requirement. But the question arises – what about any increments in salary?

Let us assume that there is an average increment of 6% in Ajay’s annual salary for the next 25 years. The total amount that Ajay would have received in next 20 years would be as follows:

The total amount Ajay would receive from his salary in the next 25 years would be 658 Lakhs. Now, we need to know how much amount one needs to deposit in debt instruments now (for the safer side) assuming an interest rate of 6% p.a. which would generate the same income year on year (as shown in the table). For this to happen, we need to calculate the present value (PV) of the cash flow which comes out to be 3 Crores which is same as the term insurance value calculated above.

The increment and additional returns from claim amount investments just complicate the overall process. The ideal way is to multiply your annual income by the number of years remaining for retirement. Additionally, I have not deducted any personal expenses of the breadwinner, which will not be required if some unfortunate event happens to the breadwinner (just to make calculations a bit simple).

The term insurance requirement will also decrease if you assume higher returns from the sum assured i.e. cover amount.

Download- Income Replacement Calculator

In next chapter, we will discuss expenses replacement method – with calculator