How is this different from the '10x income' rule?

The 10x-income rule ignores your specific mortgage balance, other debts, number of children, and existing savings — DIME accounts for each of those directly, which usually produces a more accurate (and often quite different) number for any given household.

Should I include a stay-at-home parent's income?

Yes, in spirit — even without a paycheck, replacing childcare, household management, and related labor has a real market cost. Estimate that cost and include it in the income-replacement figure.

Does this account for existing employer-provided life insurance?

Only if you include it in the 'Existing savings & life insurance' field — employer group life insurance (often 1-2x salary) is frequently not portable if you leave the job, so factor that in when deciding how much to count toward your total.

All tools

Finance

Life Insurance Needs Calculator

Estimate coverage using the DIME method: debt, income, mortgage, education.

🔒 Runs entirely in your browser — nothing here is ever uploaded

Last reviewed 2026-08-25

About the Life Insurance Needs Calculator

Estimates how much life insurance coverage your family would need using the DIME method — Debt, Income replacement, Mortgage, and Education — a more specific alternative to generic 'multiply your income by 10' rules of thumb.

How to use it

Enter your Debt & final expenses (excluding the mortgage) and your Mortgage balance.
Enter your Annual income to replace and the number of Years of income replacement your family would need.
Enter estimated future Education costs for any children.
Enter Existing savings & life insurance you already have.
Read your estimated coverage need in the result panel and chart.

Formula

Coverage need = Debt + (Annual income × years of replacement) + Mortgage balance + Education costs − existing savings & coverage

The DIME method (Debt, Income, Mortgage, Education), a named approach used across the life insurance industry as a more specific alternative to flat income-multiple rules of thumb, since it accounts for your actual obligations rather than a single generic multiplier.

Worked example

$8,000 in other debt, a $220,000 mortgage, $70,000 income replaced over 10 years ($700,000), and $60,000 in future education costs totals $988,000 — minus $50,000 in existing savings and coverage, for a $938,000 estimated need.

Recommendations

• The 'years of income replacement' choice matters more than any other input — a common starting point is until your youngest child would finish college, or until a spouse could reasonably retire.
• Don't forget a stay-at-home parent in the income-replacement figure — replacing childcare and household labor has a real cost even without a paycheck attached to it.
• This is a snapshot need, not a fixed number for life — recalculate every few years, or after a mortgage refinance, a new child, or a significant income change.

Frequently asked questions

Debt, Income, Mortgage, Education — the four components this method adds together (then subtracts existing coverage from) to estimate a life insurance need specific to your actual financial obligations, rather than a flat multiple of income.