Depending on the type of life insurance policy you have, the coverage tenure will be appropriate for securing your needs. For example, a pure term insurance plan that does not offer any maturity benefits or bonuses2 should have a good life insurance cover that offers protection for the maximum number of years, as high as 100 years.
Here, the term insurance should offer the highest possible coverage tenure so that your loved ones are protected for your whole life. Conversely, by choosing a term plan that has a very short policy period, you risk leaving your family without any life insurance coverage for the remainder of their lives. Moreover, it is essential to note that term insurance premiums are quite affordable and so a long-term insurance policy period does not affect your finances gravely.
However, in the case of other comprehensive insurance policies such as a savings plan or a Unit-Linked Insurance Policy, you can opt for life insurance with a maximum maturity age of 75 years. This is because such a policy offers the benefit of building your wealth while offering life insurance cover to you and your family. Unlike term insurance, the premium of a comprehensive policy provides a dual benefit, which means that the premiums will be divided between the life cover and the investment. Since the investments have a maturity period as well, it is sufficient for you to have life cover protection as long as the investment lasts.
There are a couple of reasons why a comprehensive policy should cover you up to 75 years of age. Firstly, the income you receive during the years of your active professional life is good enough to manage the premium payments of a comprehensive policy. Post-retirement, it can get difficult to manage premium payments for an investment insurance plan.
Secondly, the risk of an unfortunate incident affecting your family increases with age. If you have loans, debts and other expenses to take care of, then the premiums payments, which increase as you age, could cause a strain on your financial resources and should anything happen to you, your family will be left fulfilling the debts instead of leading a comfortable life with the investment corpus you have created for them.