The policy at work doesn't belong to you.
It's usually a small multiple of salary, it ends the day the job does, and converting it later is rarely cheap. That's the most common reason a household is underinsured and doesn't know it. Here's how to size coverage in about ten minutes, why term is the honest answer for most families, what a conversion privilege actually buys you, and the beneficiary mistakes that send money somewhere you didn't intend. Call us and we will run the number with you. We compare it across 40+ carriers.
The short answer
Size it with DIME — debts, income replacement, mortgage, education — then subtract what you already have. For most households the need is temporary, which is what term is built for and why it costs the least; permanent coverage exists for needs that genuinely don't end. Treat the policy through work as a supplement, not the plan, because it's usually a small multiple of salary and it ends with the job. And rates are set by your age and health on the day you're approved — which is the only real argument about timing.
Group life is a benefit. It isn't a plan.
Change employers, get laid off, or retire, and it generally ends with everything else. The amount is typically a small multiple of salary, which is a long way short of replacing an income for a decade.
Two problems, and the second one is worse.
The amount. Employer coverage is commonly set at one or two times salary. Put that next to a mortgage balance and however many years of income a household would need replaced, and the shortfall is usually large. Supplemental coverage bought through the same benefit is often available, which helps — but it typically has the same second problem.
The portability. It isn't yours. It ends when the job does, and it does so at whatever age and state of health you happen to be in at the time. Most group plans allow conversion to an individual policy on the way out, but conversion is commonly expensive and the window to exercise it is short. The people this hurts most are the ones who developed a health condition while employed — the exact people who can no longer simply go buy a policy.
Own a policy in your own name, sized to what your household actually needs, and let the group benefit sit on top of it as something extra that may or may not still be there. That way a job change is a job change rather than a coverage event.
Four numbers, ten minutes, a defensible answer.
DIME won't give you a perfect figure and doesn't need to. It gets you close enough to stop guessing, which is the part most households never get past.
Two of the four are almost always wrong, in the same direction.
Add the four, then subtract what already exists — savings, and any coverage you already own. The remainder is your target. Where people get it wrong is predictable. Years of income replacement gets set too short: a surviving spouse with young children generally needs the income until those children are independent, not for three years. And a stay-at-home parent gets valued at zero, which is the single most common mistake on this page. Their income may be nothing, but childcare, transport and everything else they do would have to be paid for by someone, and that cost arrives immediately. Insure the work, not the paycheck.
The need is usually temporary. So is the right policy.
All three are legitimate products. They're built for different shaped problems, and most households have the first shape.
Covers a fixed period — commonly 10, 20 or 30 years — and pays only if you die during it. No cash value, and the lowest cost by a wide margin. Built for a need that shrinks over time, which is what a mortgage and dependent children are.
Lasts for life with level premiums and a guaranteed cash value. Costs considerably more than term for the same death benefit, because it's designed to pay out eventually rather than possibly.
Permanent coverage with adjustable premiums and cash value that varies with how the policy is designed and funded. More moving parts, and it needs reviewing over time rather than filing away.
Why we lead with term, and when we don't.
The gap a death benefit fills is largest right now and smaller every year after. The mortgage gets paid down, children grow up, retirement savings build. Term is shaped like that problem, which is why it costs the least — you're buying coverage for the years you need it rather than for a certainty decades away. Permanent coverage exists for needs that genuinely don't end: estate liquidity, a dependent who will need support for life, funding a business buy-sell agreement, or a final expense policy bought deliberately for that purpose. Those are real, and we place them. What we won't do is point a household toward permanent coverage when the need is temporary and term would do the job for less.
Term pricing by age, and why the age matters so much.
Illustrative monthly ranges for a 20-year level term policy at a healthy, non-tobacco rate class. Your own number depends on health, tobacco use, family history, occupation and driving record, and on which carrier is asked.
| Age at issue | $500,000 · 20-year term | $1,000,000 · 20-year term | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | $20 – $30 / mo | $30 – $45 / mo | Issue age drives the rate and it only moves one way. Once set at issue, it holds level for the full term. |
| 35 | $22 – $35 / mo | $35 – $55 / mo | Often the point where a mortgage and children make the need concrete. |
| 40 | $30 – $55 / mo | $50 – $85 / mo | The most common band we quote for households in this area. |
| 45 | $50 – $90 / mo | $85 – $150 / mo | Cost starts climbing more steeply from here, and health findings become more likely. |
| 50 | $80 – $150 / mo | $140 – $260 / mo | A shorter term is often the better trade at this age than a smaller face amount. |
| 55 | $140 – $260 / mo | $240 – $450 / mo | Still generally well below permanent coverage for the same death benefit. |
| 60+ | $250+ / mo | $420+ / mo | Worth looking at what the coverage is actually still for, and at what size. |
Illustrative ranges for a healthy non-tobacco applicant on a 20-year level term policy, shown so households can budget. They are not a quote, not an offer, and not a representation that any price is available to you. Tobacco use, health history, family history, occupation, driving record, coverage amount and carrier underwriting all move the number. See the full disclosure at the foot of this page.
Level term pricing is set when the policy is approved, based on your age and health at that moment, and then it stays level for the whole term. That's the only honest thing anyone can tell you about timing — not that you should hurry, but that the number is a function of a date, and a health finding between now and later can change the answer from "more expensive" to "not available." This isn't a quote or a guarantee. Tell us the household and we'll build the real figure across our markets, including telling you if a smaller policy than you expected is the right call.
Six riders, and one of them is worth more than the rest.
Availability, cost and wording vary by carrier and by policy — the illustration and the contract are the answer, not this list.
Conversion privilege
Lets you convert term coverage to a permanent policy later without new medical underwriting. That's a hedge against becoming uninsurable — the single most valuable feature on a term policy, and it has deadlines. Ask what they are.
Waiver of premium
Keeps the policy in force by waiving premiums if you become disabled and meet the definition in the contract. The definition is the whole thing — read it rather than assuming.
Accelerated death benefit
Allows access to part of the death benefit after a qualifying terminal or chronic diagnosis. Frequently included at no extra cost, and frequently unknown to the people who have it.
Child rider
A modest amount of coverage for children under a parent's policy, usually inexpensive and usually convertible to their own policy later regardless of their health at that point.
Guaranteed insurability
Lets you increase coverage at set future points or after certain life events without proving health again. Useful for someone young whose income and obligations are both going to grow.
Long-term care rider
Allows part of the death benefit to go toward qualifying care needs instead. Structures and triggers differ a great deal between carriers, so compare the wording rather than the label.
Three beneficiary mistakes that send it to the wrong place.
The beneficiary form controls, and it controls over your will. These three come up constantly and all three are free to fix.
Naming a minor child directly
It sounds like the obvious choice and it creates a problem. An insurer generally can't hand a large sum to a child, so a court usually has to appoint someone to manage it — slow, public and expensive. A trust, or an adult custodian, is what the money should be pointed at instead.
Leaving a stale designation
After a divorce, a remarriage or a death, the beneficiary form frequently doesn't get updated — and it controls regardless of what a will says. Ex-spouses receive death benefits this way more often than anyone would guess. Review it after every major life event.
Naming your estate
A death benefit paid to a named person generally goes straight to them. Paid to the estate, it goes through probate instead — slower, public, and potentially reachable by creditors. Name people or a trust, and always name a contingent beneficiary as well.
A lot of households here are one job change away from finding out.
The corridor runs on employers who provide good benefits, and good benefits have made group life the default answer for a lot of families. That works until it doesn't. Careers here are mobile — the supplier community in particular moves between companies regularly — and every one of those moves is a moment when the household's life insurance quietly resets to whatever the new employer offers, at whatever age and health the person has reached by then. Add the number of households who relocated here for one job and stayed for another, and the pattern is common enough that it's usually the first thing we ask about.
The other local pattern is timing. Families arrive, buy a house at current prices, and take on a mortgage substantially larger than the one they left — while the coverage, if any, is still sized to a life two states and one salary ago.
Where we earn it.
The quiet mistakes on life insurance are treating the policy at work as the plan, an amount chosen because it sounded like a lot rather than because it was calculated, a stay-at-home parent insured for nothing, a beneficiary form that hasn't been looked at since before a divorce, and a term policy whose conversion deadline passed unnoticed. We run the number with you rather than for you, present a health history accurately to the carriers most likely to treat it well, tell you what the conversion deadlines are and write them down, and check the beneficiary designations while we're there. We're insurance agents rather than financial advisors, and we'll tell you when a question belongs with your attorney or CPA — but we build the policy to do its job, and we compare it across our 40+ carrier markets rather than one company's appetite.
What usually sits next to it.
Life insurance questions.
How much life insurance do I actually need?
The DIME method gives you a defensible number in about ten minutes. Add four things together. Debts, meaning credit cards, car loans, student loans and anything else that would not disappear. Income, meaning your annual income multiplied by the number of years your household would need it replaced. Mortgage, meaning the balance remaining on the home. And Education, meaning what you would want available for children. Then subtract what already exists, including savings and any coverage you already have. The remainder is your target.
It is a starting point rather than a rule, and the two numbers people get wrong are the years of income replacement, which is usually longer than they guess, and the value of a stay at home parent, which is not zero because the work still has to be paid for.
Term or permanent life insurance, which one do I need?
For most households most of the time, term is the honest answer. The need it covers is usually temporary. A mortgage gets paid down, children grow up and leave, and retirement savings accumulate, so the gap that a death benefit fills is largest now and smaller every year after. Term is built for exactly that shape and costs the least.
Permanent coverage, meaning whole life or universal life, exists for needs that genuinely do not end. Estate liquidity, a dependent who will need support for life, funding a business buy sell agreement, or a final expense policy bought deliberately for that purpose. Those are real reasons and we place permanent coverage for them. What we will not do is steer a household toward permanent coverage when the need is temporary and term would do the job for less.
Isn't the life insurance through my job enough?
Usually not, for two separate reasons. The amount is typically a small multiple of your salary, often one or two times, which is a long way short of replacing an income for a decade or paying off a mortgage. And it belongs to the job rather than to you. Change employers, get laid off, or retire, and it generally ends.
Group coverage often can be converted to an individual policy when you leave, but conversion is commonly expensive and the window is short. The practical answer is to treat employer coverage as a supplement rather than as the plan. Own a policy in your own name, sized to what your household actually needs, and let the group benefit sit on top of it as a bonus that may or may not still be there later.
Can I get life insurance with a health condition?
Frequently yes, and this is where being independent matters more than on almost any other product. Life carriers underwrite health very differently from each other, and a condition that one company rates harshly another may treat as routine. Controlled blood pressure, managed diabetes, treated sleep apnea, a history of depression and prior cancer that is well behind you are all situations where the answer depends heavily on which carrier is asked.
What helps is complete information at the start. Tell us the diagnosis, the treatment, the dates and the current control, because a case presented accurately to the right underwriter goes much better than the same case shopped blind. If a condition genuinely rules out traditional underwriting, coverage that does not require it exists at smaller face amounts.
Who should I name as my beneficiary?
An adult, or a properly established trust, and then review it after every major life event. Three mistakes cause most of the trouble. Naming a minor child directly, which sounds natural but means the money cannot simply be handed over and a court usually has to appoint someone to manage it. Leaving a stale designation in place after a divorce, a remarriage or a death, because the beneficiary form controls regardless of what a will says.
And naming your estate, which routes the money through probate and can expose it to creditors when a direct beneficiary designation would have avoided both. Name a contingent beneficiary as well, keep the form current, and if minor children are the intended recipients, ask an attorney about a trust rather than naming them outright.
How do I get life insurance in Northwest Arkansas?
Call (479) 286-1066 and we will do it with you on the phone. There is no online form for life insurance, and that is deliberate: sizing it properly is a conversation, not a set of boxes. To size it properly we need a rough picture of the household. Your age, tobacco use, general health and any conditions, the mortgage balance, roughly what your household would need replaced and for how long, whether there are children and how old they are, and what coverage already exists including anything through work.
If there is a health history worth explaining, tell us early rather than late, because the carrier that fits your health profile is the one that determines both whether you are approved and what you pay. We will tell you plainly if the honest answer is a smaller policy than you expected, or if what you already own is enough.
If our coverage explainers are useful, mark Cribb Insurance as a preferred source so more Northwest Arkansas families can find our local, plain-English guides.
Tell us about the household. We'll run the number with you.
Ages, the mortgage, whether there are children and how old, what the household would need replaced and for how long, and what coverage already exists — including anything through work, because that's usually the part nobody has checked. We'll size it with you, present any health history to the carriers most likely to treat it well, write down the conversion deadlines, and look at the beneficiary form while we're there. If the honest answer is a smaller policy than you expected, that's what you'll hear.
Cribb Insurance Group Inc. is an independent insurance agency licensed in Arkansas. This page describes life insurance in general, industry-standard terms for informational purposes only. It is not a policy, not an offer of insurance, and not a guarantee of coverage, availability, eligibility, or price.
About the premium ranges on this page. The figures shown are illustrative monthly ranges for a 20-year level term policy at a healthy, non-tobacco rate class, published so households can budget. They are not a quote, not an offer, not an estimate of your premium, and not a representation that any particular price is available to you or to anyone. Life insurance premiums are individually underwritten and are affected by age, sex, tobacco use, height and weight, medical history and current health, family medical history, prescription and motor vehicle records, occupation and avocations, the coverage amount and term selected, and each carrier's own underwriting and filed rates. Rate classes vary between carriers and the same applicant can be classified differently by different companies. Rates change over time and these ranges are not a prediction of future pricing. No saving, discount or comparative advantage is stated or implied.
Death benefits, premiums, cash value, rate classes, riders including conversion, waiver of premium, accelerated death benefit, child, guaranteed insurability and long-term care riders, along with their eligibility conditions, deadlines, definitions, limitations and exclusions, are set by the carrier, vary by product and by state and over time, are subject to the carrier's underwriting approval, and apply only as written in the policy actually issued to you. Riders are not available on every product or to every applicant and may cost extra. Policies commonly include a contestability period and other standard limitations. Approval is not guaranteed and coverage does not exist until a policy is issued and the first premium is paid.
Cribb Insurance Group is an insurance agency, not a financial advisor, tax advisor or law firm. Nothing on this page is investment, financial, tax, legal or estate-planning advice, and nothing here should be relied on as such. Life insurance is described here as coverage, not as an investment, and no representation is made about cash value performance, returns or tax treatment. Questions about trusts, wills, estate planning, business succession, guardianship of minors and the tax treatment of a death benefit belong with your own attorney and CPA, and the beneficiary discussion on this page is general information rather than advice about your situation. Any cost or coverage descriptions are general and illustrative, not a quote, and not a guarantee; your premium and coverage are determined at underwriting and by the policy issued.
Last reviewed July 2026.