Does our young family have enough insurance?

Sammu and Mandy’s experience

We each checked with our individual employers and found that we had the following coverage.

A. Life insurance with our employer
Sammu: $25,000 (paid by employer)
Mandy: 1 x annual salary (paid at rate of $0.15 for basic life insurance/per $1000).

B. Additional life insurance outside work (total paid: $846 per year)
Sammu: $1,500,000 (10 year term)
Mandy: $500,000 (10 year term)

In terms of how much life insurance we need, at this time we feel we probably need about $2 million. We decided to go with a 10-year term since we were both healthy and would accumulate savings and assets over those 10 years that could be used as a cushion for loss in future. If we remain healthy (knock on wood) after 10 years, we can reapply and get a lower premium versus the rollover premium

C. Long-term disability with our employer:

Sammu: My policy has a cap of 60% of annual earnings, with a max of $10,000 a month. (Note: the first 16 weeks are paid out at Sammu’s full earnings rate). I’m paying $67 biweekly for this.
Mandy: Her policy is capped of 55% of annual salary

We believe our LTD policies cover us if we cannot work with our long term disability. There is no cap on our disability payments from what we understand. Is that possible?

What the expert says

Lorne Marr, an independent life insurance broker, believes the couples needs life insurance for 20 full years. For Sammu, a $1.5-million policy is not enough. “He’d be safe with another $500,000 to $1 million,” says Marr. “He should do it as a Term-20 policy because if all his life insurance policies are Term-10, and his health changes in 10 years, he won’t be able to get cheap coverage.” Marr recommends that in 10 years, when Sammu has built up some assets and his kids are preteens, he can drop the Term-10 policy he has now and keep just the new Term-20. The cost for $1 million of Term-20? About $74 a month, and for $500,000, about $41 a month.

As for Mandy, Marr feels she, too, needs another $1 million. “She only has $500,000 and should also go with $1 million at Term-20,” says Marr. The cost? About $46 a month. “It’s cheap and worth it for that protection at her age.”

The amount of long-term disability insurance (LTD) the couple has is adequate. For Sammu, his $10,000 monthly cap means that if he earned $20,000 monthly, he’d get 60% of this on disability. That would be $12,000, but since the cap is $10,000 a month, he’d only get $10,000. “Still, that’s a healthy maximum for him,” says Marr.

But he has concerns about the type of coverage Sammu has. “He’s covered for ‘regular occupation’ for the first two years and ‘any occupation’ after that. Any occupation isn’t that good,” says Marr. “If he’s an engineer and can do a teller’s job, then he wouldn’t receive the disability benefit.”

So the amount of LTD for Sammu is adequate, but he can do a bit better by buying a private LTD plan that starts with a two-year waiting period and covers him for his own occupation, or “regular occupation” after that. Alternatively, Marr says Sammu could simply go with a critical Illness policy that will pay out on top of his present disability insurance plan. “If he did a $220,000 policy, it would replace two years of income,” says Marr. “A 10-year term would cost $73 a month.”

For Mandy, “her long term disability plan is enough,” says Marr.

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More about insurance:

• 8 critical illness insurance myths
• 7 disability insurance myths to stop believing
• How to choose the right insurance
• Insurance you need and don’t need

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