Play · insurance & risk

Insurance Gap Check

Updated 2026-07-31 · Concept: how big is the hole if the income stops

Life cover is not a bet on dying. It is a way of making sure the people who depend on your income still have one if it stops. The arithmetic is unglamorous: add up what would have to be paid for anyway, subtract what already exists, and look at what is left. This tool exists to tell you whether that gap is roughly zero or roughly enormous, and nothing finer than that.

Predict first

A household earns $60,000 and wants ten years of that replaced. They owe $220,000 including the mortgage, want to fund $60,000 of education, hold $40,000 in liquid assets, and already have $50,000 of cover through work. How big is the gap?

Pick an estimate, or skip to your own numbers.

Household income to replace ($/yr) Years to replace it: 10 Debts, incl. mortgage ($) Education to fund ($) Liquid assets ($) Cover you already hold ($)

How the figure is built
Line	Amount

A rough needs-based estimate: not a quote, and not advice. It ignores survivor benefits, a surviving partner's earnings, tax treatment, inflation over the replacement years, and whether term or permanent cover fits your situation. Every one of those can move the number materially. A fee-only adviser or a licensed agent should walk you through the real version; level term cover is usually the cheapest instrument that closes a gap this shape.

But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

1 Timothy 5:8

KJV. Paul is writing about who the church should support: families were expected to care for their own widows first. The verse is about present provision rather than insurance policies, and it should not be swung as a club, but the duty it names does not obviously stop at your own death, which is the whole argument for cover. Insurance is not the opposite of faith: Proverbs 22:3 commends the prudent who foresee trouble and take cover, and Proverbs 21:31 has the horse prepared for the day of battle and the victory belonging to the Lord. Both, not either.

Go deeper: what cover you actually need · how risk pooling works · beneficiaries and documents

This tool needs JavaScript, but the arithmetic fits in a sentence: income × years to replace, plus debts, plus education to fund, minus liquid assets, minus cover you already hold. Anything left over is the gap.

Worked example: $60,000 × 10 years = $600,000, plus $220,000 of debts, plus $60,000 of education = $880,000 of need. Against $40,000 of assets and $50,000 of existing cover = $90,000 covered. The gap is $790,000.