Life Insurance Calculator
DIME, 10x income and Human Life Value, all from one set of inputs
Last updated: October 2026
Income and Family
Leave at 0 to replace your full income. Any amount here is shown as a separate offset in DIME.
Debts and Offsets
Auto, student and credit card balances
Funeral, burial and final medical bills
Cash and taxable investments, not retirement accounts
Your estimate in today's dollars. See your Social Security statement.
Human Life Value Assumptions
All income and payroll tax as a share of gross pay, not your top bracket
Share of take-home pay you spend on yourself
All Three Methods Compared
Each method's total is before offsets. The same offsets are taken from whichever method you pick.
DIME Breakdown
Human Life Value Detail
Pick the method that fits your situation
DIME suits a family that can list its debts and goals. Human Life Value suits someone whose main contribution is decades of future pay. 10x income is a quick sanity check. Which one comes out highest depends on your inputs: with these figures it is DIME.
How This Calculator Works
DIME
DIME adds your non-mortgage debt, your income times the years your family needs it, your mortgage balance, college costs for each child and final expenses. With the default inputs that is $25,000 + $85,000 x 20 + $320,000 + $200,000 + $15,000 = $2,260,000. If your spouse will keep earning, enter their income and it is taken off as its own line.
10x income
Ten times your gross income: $850,000 on an $85,000 salary. It ignores debt, children and time to retirement, so use it only as a cross-check.
Human Life Value
Take your gross pay, remove tax at your effective rate (all income and payroll tax as a share of gross pay, not your top bracket), then remove the share you would have spent on yourself. Grow what is left by real pay growth each year to retirement and discount every year back to today at the real return. Real rates use (1 + nominal) / (1 + inflation) - 1. On the defaults this gives about $939,862, well below DIME, because DIME counts gross income and HLV counts only what reaches your family.
Offsets
Existing life insurance, savings your family could draw on and Social Security survivor benefits all reduce the new coverage you need. The same offsets are applied to whichever method you choose, so the comparison stays fair.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which of the three methods should I trust?
None of them is an upper or lower bound. DIME adds up real obligations and counts your full income for every year you replace, so it often comes out highest for a young family with a mortgage. Human Life Value discounts your future take-home pay to today and removes what you would have spent on yourself, so it can land below DIME. 10x income ignores your situation entirely. Run all three, then pick a figure you can explain line by line.
How does a spouse’s income change the answer?
By default the income leg of DIME replaces your full income for the years you choose. If your spouse will keep working, you can enter their income as an optional offset. It appears as its own line, so you can see exactly how much it lowers the need, and it can never push the income leg below zero. The DIME calculator on this site treats it the same way.
What reduces the coverage I need to buy?
Life insurance you already own, savings your family could use (cash and taxable investments, not your emergency fund), and Social Security survivor benefits. Survivor benefits can be paid to a widow or widower caring for a child under 16 and to unmarried children under 18. Your Social Security statement shows estimates. Enter a total in today’s dollars.
Term vs whole life insurance, which should I buy?
For protection during the years your family depends on your income, term life is usually the better fit because it costs far less for the same death benefit. Whole life adds a cash value account and lasts for life, which can suit estate liquidity needs or a dependent who needs lifetime support. Compare quotes for both against your actual need before deciding.
Does a stay-at-home parent need life insurance?
Usually, yes. If a stay-at-home parent died, the family would have to pay for childcare, transport and household work that was being done for free. Price those services where you live and use that yearly cost as the income figure in DIME.
Should I rely on employer group life insurance?
Treat it as a bonus. Group cover is often a small multiple of salary and usually ends when you leave the job. Count it as existing coverage, but consider owning a term policy that stays with you.
How much coverage will an insurer actually sell me?
Insurers cap total coverage with age-based multiples of earned income. A common pattern is about 30 times income up to age 35, around 20 times in your 40s and early 50s, 15 times near 60 and 10 times or less after that. The exact bands differ from one insurer to the next.