How much life cover you need
Work out how much life cover your family would actually need, using human life value rather than a rule of thumb somebody quoted you.
Runs entirely in your browserRuns entirely on your device — nothing you type is sent anywhere. Educational only, and not investment advice.
How to use this calculator
Each step names a control you will find on screen above.
- Annual income
What your family would stop receiving. Take-home, not CTC — the family loses what actually arrived in the account.
- Your age and Family needs support until you would be
The number of years of income to replace. Usually until your intended retirement age, or until the youngest child is independent.
- Outstanding loans
Added in full. A home loan that would otherwise force a family to sell the house is the single strongest argument for cover.
- Big future goals
Education and marriage, at today’s cost. Education inflation in India runs well above general inflation, so do not be conservative here.
- Liquid assets already saved
Subtracted, because the family already has it. EPF, mutual funds and deposits count; the house you live in does not.
Worked example: Thirty-five, earning ₹15 lakh, with a home loan
Age 35, take-home ₹15 lakh a year, family needs support for 25 more years. ₹40 lakh of home loan outstanding, ₹50 lakh of future education and marriage costs, ₹30 lakh already invested.
What to enter
- Annual income
- ₹15,00,000
- Your age
- 35
- Family needs support until you would be
- 60
- Outstanding loans
- ₹40,00,000
- Big future goals
- ₹50,00,000
- Liquid assets already saved
- ₹30,00,000
What it shows you
- Income replacement
- ≈ ₹3.3 crore
- Plus loans and goals
- ₹90 lakh
- Less existing assets
- −₹30 lakh
- Cover needed
- ≈ ₹3.9 crore
- The "15× income" rule gives
- ₹2.25 crore
- Annual premium at 35
- ≈ ₹25,000–35,000
25 years, inflated and discounted
well short
Where this is taught
A calculator gives you a number. These explain what the number means and when it misleads you.
- Market Basics11 minHow much life cover, and why only termA figure built from what your family would actually have to replace — and why every product that mixes insurance with investment does both badly.
- Market Basics11 minInsurance is not an investmentULIPs, endowment and money-back policies bundle protection with returns and deliver both badly. How to separate the two, and what the bundle actually costs you.
- Risk & Psychology14 minThe rupee counted twiceTwo plans, written eleven months apart, in two different apps. One says the ₹6,80,000 in the sweep account is eight months of emergency cover. The other says it is the shortfall on the flat. Both are internally correct, both read as funded, and between them they are short by exactly the whole amount.
- Risk & Psychology13 minThe year in which nothing went wrongEleven renewals, no claim, and a household doing the sum out loud at the dining table. The arithmetic they are doing is correct and the question it answers is the wrong one — because a protection decision is designed around the outcome that has just happened for the eleventh time.