How Much Life Insurance is Enough?

多少人寿保险才够？

One reason for choosing a life insurance policy is to figure how much your dependents will need after you’re gone. In order to choose the face value (the amount your policy pays if you die) of your life insurance you should consider the following:

选择人寿保险的一个原因是为了确定在您去世后，您的家属需要多少资金。为了选择您人寿保险的保险金额（即保单在您去世时支付的金额），您应考虑以下几点：

• DEBT: How much debt you have: All of your debts must be paid off in full, including car loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc. If you have a $200,000 mortgage and a $4,000 car loan, you need at least $204,000 in your policy to cover your debts (and possibly a little more to take care of the interest as well). 
• 您的债务总额: 所有债务必须全额偿还，包括汽车贷款、抵押贷款、信用卡等。如果您有20万美元的抵押贷款和4000美元的汽车贷款，您需要至少204,000美元的保额来覆盖这些债务（可能还需更多，以应对利息）。

• Income Replacement: One of the biggest factors for life insurance is for income replacement, which will be a major determinant of the size of your policy. If you are the only provider for your dependents and you bring in $40,000 a year, you will need a policy payout that is large enough to replace your income plus a little extra to guard against inflation. Just to replace your income, you will need a $500,000 policy. This is not a set rule, but adding your yearly income back into the policy (500,000 + 40,000 = 540,000 in this case) is a fairly good guard against inflation. Remember, you have to add this $540,000 to whatever your total debts add up to. 
• 收入替代: 人寿保险的一个主要目的就是替代收入，这将是保单金额的重要决定因素。如果您是家里的唯一收入来源，年收入为40,000美元，您需要的保单支付金额应足够替代您的收入，并额外留出一些以防通货膨胀。仅替代收入，您需要一份50万美元的保单。虽然这不是固定规则，但将您的年收入加回保单（在这种情况下，50万美元 + 4万美元 = 54万美元）是应对通货膨胀的合理方法。请记住，您必须将这54万美元加到您总债务的金额上。

• Future Obligations: If you want to pay for your child's college tuition you will have to add this to the amount of coverage you want, which would be about another $100,000
• 未来的义务: 如果您希望为孩子的大学学费提供资金，您需要将这部分费用添加到您所需的保险金额中，大约需要再增加10万美元。

Adding everything together, you will probably want a policy for $840,000 ($540,000 to replace yearly income + $200,000 for the mortgage expense + $100,000 university expense).

将所有这些加在一起，您可能需要一份84万美元的保单（54万美元用于替代年收入 + 20万美元的抵押贷款费用 + 10万美元的大学费用)。

Once you determine the required face value of your insurance company, you can start shopping around for the right policy (and a good deal).

一旦确定了所需的保险金额，您可以开始寻找合适的保单（和好的交易）。

Obviously there are other people in your life who are important to you and you may wonder if you should insure them. As a rule, you should only insure people whose death would mean a financial loss to you. If you have a spouse or partner that also is a contributor to the family income, then it would make sense to go through the same exercise to determine the face value of the policy.

显然，您生活中还有其他重要的人，您可能会想知道是否应该为他们投保。一般来说，您只应为那些其去世会给您带来经济损失的人投保。如果您的配偶或伴侣也是家庭收入的贡献者，那么进行同样的计算以确定保单金额是合理的。