人寿保险: how much is enough? --$1M

First of all, I am not a life insurance agent but would like to share my take on this. In general, the amount of insurance you should buy depends on your age and family situation. It really comes down to: if you die today, how much money do you need(or want - in some cases here:)) to leave to your family(wife, kids, parents)? This can be further broken down into the following categories, reflected own personal weights on various things:)

1. Housing: You probably don\'t want your wife having to moving out of house on top of dealing with the loss of you. So whatever left in mortgage balance, say $500K.

2. Kids education expense: 2nd most important (and expensive) issue. For most private colleges it costs at least $50,000/year in today\'s cost, so say you have 2 kids, that is 2*4*50,000 = $400K.

3. Parents: You should have the amount necessary to cover their major medical expenses when they need it. For most of our parents in China, we should prepare $50K for both parents on either side.

4. Wife: People\'s views on this vary. Most Americans would leave some money to cover wife\'s living expenses. As for us Chinese, most families have two incomes. My personal view is that I would like for her have the flexibility to recover and not having to work for a couple of years...say $50K.

So there you have it, $500K + $400K + $50K + $50K = $1M. Personally I think I have about $1.4M so if god forbid anything happens to me, I feel that I have fulfilled my responsibilities as a husband, a father, and a son.

[ncpga]

good job!