Key takeaways
- September is Life Insurance Awareness Month — an annual industry-wide campaign, coordinated by the nonprofit Life Happens, to get families to look at their coverage once a year.
- Surveys consistently find a large share of Americans know they need more life insurance than they have — the gap between "I should" and "I did" is the whole reason the month exists.
- The 10-minute checkup: beneficiaries, coverage amount, term end date, and employer coverage.
- An outdated beneficiary designation is the most painful mistake we see — life insurance pays the person named on the form, not the person in your will.
- Employer-provided coverage is a benefit, not a plan: it's usually 1–2× salary and typically disappears when the job does.
- Modern policies can include living benefits that let you access part of the death benefit during a serious illness — worth asking about if your policy is more than a few years old.
Every September, the life insurance industry runs its one coordinated public-awareness campaign of the year: Life Insurance Awareness Month. It’s easy to roll your eyes at an “awareness month” for a financial product — but this one earns its slot on the calendar, because life insurance is the purchase people most reliably intend to make and most reliably postpone.
Year after year, industry research finds a stubborn gap between the number of Americans who say they need life insurance (or need more of it) and the number who actually have what they need. Nobody wakes up excited to think about this. So the month exists to do one simple thing: get you to look at your coverage once a year. In that spirit, here’s the checkup we walk clients through — it genuinely takes about ten minutes.
The 10-minute checkup
1. Pull up your beneficiaries — first, always
Life insurance pays the person named on the beneficiary form. Not the person in your will, not your current spouse by default — the name on the form. Divorces, remarriages, births, deaths, and estrangements all have a way of not making it onto that piece of paper.
Check the primary beneficiary on every policy you own, including the group coverage through your job. Then check the contingent beneficiary — the backup if your primary can’t receive the money. If you don’t have a contingent named, add one; it’s the difference between a quick payout and the proceeds potentially routing through probate.
2. Sanity-check the amount
The policy that fit your life at 32 may not fit at 47. A quick way to pressure-test your number is the DIME framework — add up what you’d want covered in each bucket:
| Letter | Bucket | What to count |
|---|---|---|
| D | Debt | Credit cards, car loans, personal loans — everything except the mortgage |
| I | Income | Years of your income your family would need to replace, times your annual income |
| M | Mortgage | The remaining balance on your home |
| E | Education | What you’d want set aside for kids’ schooling |
If the total is meaningfully larger than the coverage you carry, you’ve found the gap. It doesn’t have to be closed all at once — layering a new term policy on top of an existing one is common and often inexpensive, especially if you’re still relatively young and healthy. Our overview of life insurance options walks through the main routes.
3. Find your term end date
If you own term life insurance, somewhere in your policy is a date when the level premium ends. After it, coverage either terminates or the premium jumps sharply year over year. People are routinely surprised by how close that date has gotten — a 20-year policy bought when your now-teenager was born isn’t as far from expiring as it feels.
If your term is inside its final five years, this is the moment to decide what happens next: convert some or all of it to permanent coverage (most term policies include a conversion privilege with a deadline of its own), buy a new term policy while your health still prices well, or let it lapse deliberately because the need has genuinely passed. Any of those can be right. Discovering the end date the year the premium spikes is the only wrong version.
4. Stop leaning on employer coverage alone
Group life through work is a nice benefit — and a shaky foundation. It’s usually capped at one or two times salary, which is well below what the DIME math shows most families need. More importantly, it’s typically tied to the job: change employers, get laid off, or retire, and the coverage generally ends or becomes expensive to keep.
The rule of thumb we give clients: treat employer coverage as a bonus on top of a policy you personally own, not as the plan itself. A personally owned policy follows you through every job change and stays priced on the health you had when you bought it.
Worth asking about: living benefits
If your policy is more than a few years old, it may be worth a review for another reason: many newer policies include living benefits — riders that let you access a portion of your own death benefit early if you’re diagnosed with a qualifying critical, chronic, or terminal illness. For families that would otherwise drain savings during a serious illness, this has changed what life insurance is for: protection you might use while you’re alive, not only a payout after you’re gone.
Not every policy has them, and terms vary widely. A review tells you what your current policy actually includes and what adding them would cost.
And if you’re over 65 — this month is for you too
A persistent myth says life insurance stops mattering at retirement. For many households it matters differently, not less: final expenses, a surviving spouse who loses one Social Security check, leaving something to kids or grandkids, or covering costs Medicare doesn’t. Coverage is frequently still available and affordable later in life — particularly smaller permanent policies designed for exactly these needs.
Frequently asked questions
Do I really need life insurance if I’m single with no kids? Maybe not much — but if anyone co-signed a loan with you, would inherit your debts’ consequences, or depends on you financially (including aging parents), a modest policy is cheap peace of mind. Locking in coverage while young and healthy is also the least expensive it will ever be.
Is the coverage through my job enough? For most families, no. It’s typically 1–2× salary and usually vanishes when the job ends. Use it as a supplement to coverage you own personally.
Term or whole life — which is right? They solve different problems: term buys the most protection per dollar for a defined window; permanent coverage lasts a lifetime and builds cash value. Many families use both at different stages. There’s no universal answer, which is why the review starts with your situation, not a product.
How often should I review my coverage? Once a year — hence the awareness month — and immediately after any big life event: marriage, divorce, a birth, a home purchase, a job change, or retirement.
Ten minutes now, or a hard conversation later
Life Insurance Awareness Month works because it converts a vague “I should look at that” into a date on the calendar. So: this week, pull out your policies, check the four items above, and see where you stand. Most people find everything’s fine — and now they know it’s fine, which is the point.
If the checkup turns up a gap, an approaching term end date, or a beneficiary form stuck in a previous chapter of your life, we’re glad to help you sort the options with zero pressure. Reach out for a free review or call 904-654-5450. Kate Spilsbury (RSSA®, CMIP®) and the Mere Benefits team are independent agents based in Jacksonville, serving Northeast Florida and Camden County, GA — and September is exactly the right month for this conversation.
This article is educational and not medical, tax, or legal advice. Policy features, riders, and availability vary by carrier, product, and state; beneficiary and trust decisions can have legal and tax consequences worth reviewing with a qualified professional.
Founder & Licensed Insurance Agent at Mere Benefits — RSSA®, CMIP®. Independent, no-pressure guidance across Northeast Florida & Camden County, GA. This article is educational and not medical, tax, or legal advice.
Questions about your own situation?
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