Do you have enough life insurance? A quick coverage check-up
Your life insurance needs can change over time. Here's how to tell whether your current coverage still measures up.
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September 22, 2026 / 12:58 PM EDT / CBS News
Life insurance tends to be purchased around a major milestone. Getting married, buying a home or having a child may prompt someone to take out a policy, choose a coverage amount and check the task off their financial to-do list. But while the life insurance policy may stay the same for years on end, the financial picture it was designed to protect rarely does.
Income can rise, mortgages and other debts can grow or shrink and families can take on new financial obligations over time. In turn, a life insurance policy that once seemed substantial may need to cover a much different set of expenses a few years later. On the other hand, some obligations may disappear as the years go by, changing how much protection makes sense.
In turn, periodically reviewing your life insurance tends to be an important part of a broader financial check-up. But rather than focusing on the dollar amount printed on your life insurance policy, it may help to look at what that money would actually need to accomplish if your family had to rely on it. So, how do you do that? That's what we'll examine below.
Find out how a New York Life insurance policy could benefit you today .