I researched life insurance last year and was struck by two facts. First, not everyone really needs life insurance. Second, if you do need insurance your best bet is likely to be term insurance.

You might not need life insurance if ...

If you are single with no children, you may not need life insurance. After all, the whole point of life insurance is to take care of those you leave behind. And if you're single and have no children, you're not really going to leave anyone behind, are you?

You will need life insurance if ...

If you are married and have children under the age of 21, you probably should have life insurance. However in this day and age, the important consideration is who is really the primary breadwinner. If it's the wife, maybe it's she who should have theinsurance.

The second consideration in buying life insurance is the age of your children. If they are very young, the surviving spouse might be raising children for 15 or more years. On the other hand, if your children are almost grown you may not need as much coverage.

Check out term insurance

A term life insurance policy is like renting coverage. You give the insurance company a set amount each month or each year and in return, it pays your heirs a set amount if you die. That's it. Period. In other words, the policy gains no cash value over the years. And if you stop paying the premiums, the coverage stops.

The good news about term insurance is that it's relatively inexpensive. For example, if you’re 35 and in good health, you can probably buy a $500,000, 10-year, level term policy for less than $300 a year. Or you could buy a 20 year level-term policy for maybe $400 a year and so on. In other words, the longer the term, the more the insurance costs.

If term insurance would make sense for you and your family, you don't even have to see an insurance agent anymore. There are websites where you provide your personal information and then get quotes on term insurance in various amounts. Three of these are

Quickquote.com
reliaQuote.com
intelliquote.com

OK, I know. Life insurance is not a very fun topic. But if you have a young family, it's something you need to at least think about.

Frugal Doug