Interactive tool
Coverage rarely keeps up with life. Income grows, debts change, and family plans add obligations an old policy never anticipated, which is why so many households carry less protection than they'd want. This calculator gives you general guidance on what adequate coverage might look like for your situation.
Built by Jesse Plunkett, CEPA, CRPC · Last reviewed July 11, 2026 · Verify on 
This is an educational illustration, not an insurance recommendation or an offer of coverage. I help clients plan for insurance as part of a broader financial picture; if I put a policy in place for you, I may earn a commission, and I'll always tell you. Everything is calculated in your browser; nothing you enter is sent or stored unless you choose to send a question.
Ask it here and I'll reply personally. Sending a question doesn't add you to any email list.
Insurance is one piece of protecting the people who depend on you. A short call is enough to see whether the rest of your plan holds together.
It adds up what your family would face: your debts, the income you want to replace multiplied by the years they'd need it, future expenses like college or weddings, and final expenses. Then it subtracts what you already have in life insurance and liquid savings. What remains is your estimated coverage gap.
Yes, include it under existing life insurance. One caution: employer coverage usually ends when the job does, and the amount, often one or two times salary, is rarely enough on its own. Treat it as a supplement to coverage you own personally rather than the foundation of your family's protection.
Term insurance covers you for a set period, often 10 to 30 years, at a lower premium. Permanent insurance is designed to last your lifetime and can build cash value, with higher premiums and policy expenses. Which fits depends on how long the need lasts and what the coverage has to do. For many households, a term policy sized to the gap is where the conversation starts.
Almost always. Everything is handled virtually, so where you live is rarely a barrier. The only exception is a handful of states where I'm not registered yet, and if that's you, I'll tell you on our first call.
Yes. It's free to link to and free to embed on your own site using the code in the "Cite or embed" section below. Please keep the attribution and disclosure lines in place.
Writers, teachers, and other advisors are welcome to reference this tool or place it on their own page. Both options below keep the calculator with its assumptions, its disclosures, and a link back here, which is what makes it useful to a reader who lands on it somewhere else.
Plunkett, Jesse. “Life Insurance Needs Calculator.” True Stewards Advisory, https://truestewards.com/life-insurance-calculator. Accessed [date].
<iframe src="https://truestewards.com/life-insurance-calculator?embed=1"
title="Life Insurance Needs Calculator by True Stewards Advisory"
width="100%" height="1000" loading="lazy"
style="border:1px solid #ece3d2;border-radius:10px"></iframe>
The embedded version runs the same math in your reader’s browser, collects nothing, and carries the required disclosures with it. Please leave the attribution and disclosure lines in place. Questions, or want a different size? Email me.