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Free Financial Decision Calculator

Life Insurance Needs Calculator

Estimate the financial gap a death could leave behind — and see exactly which assumptions create the number instead of relying on a salary multiple.

Reviewed · Oct 5, 2026
What this does

Builds a coverage estimate from support needs, household services, debts, goals, assets and existing insurance.

Have ready

What your household would need each year, major debts/goals, liquid assets and any personal or employer life coverage.

Terra approachShow the assumptionsSeparate work coverageNo product recommendationRead the insurance guide →

Your assumptions

Enter the needs you would want a death benefit to cover. Use the amounts your survivors would actually need — not automatically your full salary or every account balance.

Enter the annual amount survivors would need from the policy, in today’s dollars.
Useful for unpaid caregiving, childcare, transportation or household work that would need to be replaced.
Used only to translate a stream of future support into a lump-sum estimate.
This affects the temporary-need horizon, not the payoff amount.
Do not automatically count assets your survivor still needs for retirement or another protected goal.
Terra shows the result both with and without this coverage.

Saved scenarios stay privately in this browser under My Terra. Nothing is saved unless you choose Save this scenario.

Method: one-time needs are added directly. Annual support and household-service needs are converted to a lump sum using the return and inflation assumptions you enter. Social Security survivor benefits, taxes on invested proceeds, insurance premiums and state-specific rules are not automatically modeled.
Important context

Do not subtract every asset automatically.

If a surviving spouse still needs retirement savings for retirement, treating the entire retirement account as available to replace lost income can simply move the shortfall from today to later. Enter only the portion of assets you would truly want available for this purpose.

Some survivors may also qualify for Social Security survivor benefits. Terra does not automatically reduce the insurance estimate for those benefits because eligibility and amounts are household-specific.

See Social Security survivor eligibility →