My wife and I are discussing life insurance and want to ask if the policy should be for the same value as our home or mortgage, thanks?

Hi Steven,
It is very much up to you as to the amount of cover you want to get. You need to look at a number of factors as well as your mortgage such as your age, any dependents, your income earning potential, your other assets and any legacy you would like to leave.
Best place to start would probably be a financial planner/adviser who could help you to work on a total wealth and protection strategy.
There are a few very good ones on this forum who will likely jump in with their opinions for you
Best of luck
Scott
0435.474.498

Hi Steven,

As far as life insurance amounts are concerned, if you ask 10 different advisers, you will get 10 different answers.

My belief if that you should have the minimum level of insurance at all times, therefore my full answer would depend on whether you have kids or not.

Clearing the mortgage is the first thing I suggest doing for life insurance.

Secondly, if you have kids there are a couple of extra considerations:

1. My goal is to allow the surviving spouse to become a full time parent - this requires a replacement income for the family (I work off 3 levels - standard, above average or flush).

2. Funeral/Final expenses - an amount should be added to cover this.

Once the total is worked out, further calculations needs to be done to work out the final cover levels required.

Steven, if you are considering life insurance I would suggest looking at making sure you have all your bases covered. Here is a quick video to explain the different types of cover - https://youtu.be/4JljgF-l_HI

You have a 1 in 10 chance of claiming on life insurance but some of the other covers are much more likely. Here is a video showing the likelihood of each type of cover - https://youtu.be/js2aGVaZ05A

If you would like an idea of how much I believe you should have based on your personal situation, I have built a Facebook messenger tool that will walk you through this and give you an answer in less than 5 minutes.

You can check this out here - https://m.me/TruePrideAU

If you have any further questions, let me know!

Thanks,
Craig