Originally Posted by will76

there is a lot of things to consider. How much do you need and what type of insurance to get are the most important.

If you have people depending on your income you should factor in how much you make so they could still maintain their standard of living if you died. If you have kids you should factor in money for college, if you have debt you should factor all of that in so it could be paid off.

If you can afford it there are a lot of advantages to getting permanent life insurance (whole life or VUL) vs term. Term is simply that, for a term then its gone. Whole life is simple that, for your whole life. Whole life also has an investment component where some of your premium gets invested and grows a cash value. The cash value can be used later in life as part of your retirement and can be borrowed from at any time TAX FREE. Since whole life is insurance + cash value it costs more than term.

The most important thing with any type of insurance is understanding your insurability. Once you have life insurance, you got it. The only way you can lose it is to stop making payments, or finish the term if you chose that type. Younger people say all the time " I am young, why do i need it". Not only is a lot cheaper for you now because you are young and in good health, but why wait, you never know when you will lose your insurability. Chances are you will get married and have kids in the next 5- 10 years so why not lock it in now, get a head of the game. On the flip side you wait, and later discover you have an illness or you get into a bad car accident, and now its too late. You either can't get insurance or it will be a lot more expensive.

Term life is very cheap for most people. Depending on your age / medical condition you can get a 1M dollar policy for likely less than $100 a month. If you can afford it I would suggest going with permanent (whole life or VUL ) depending on how much you can afford. No excuse not to have life insurance especially if you have a family that depends on you.