Reviewing your life insurance

Check the names

• Is the primary beneficiary still who you'd choose?
• Is a contingent beneficiary named at all?
• Are names spelled correctly, with current relationships?
• Does the group policy through work name the same people?
• Has anyone named died, divorced, or fallen out of your life?

Check the amount still fits

Coverage sized to your life five years ago may not match it now, and the mismatch runs both ways.

• Has your mortgage balance changed?
• Has your income changed materially?
• Have you added or lost a dependent?
• Has other coverage started or ended, including through work?
• Have debts been cleared or added?

Check it's actually in force

Confirm premiums are being paid — especially if you changed bank accounts or cards. A lapse caused by a failed payment is a mundane and entirely preventable way to lose decades of coverage.

For permanent policies, request a current in-force illustration. It shows how the policy is actually performing rather than how it was projected to, and that gap can be significant.

Check the deadlines you're sitting on

Term policies with a conversion option have a deadline attached, often expiring before the term does. Group coverage has conversion windows after leaving a job.

These pass quietly and can't be recovered. Knowing the dates is most of the work.

Check people can find it

Insurers generally don't know a policyholder has died unless someone tells them. Make sure at least one person knows the insurer, roughly what's covered, and where the documents are.

It's the least technical item here and the one most likely to determine whether the policy ever pays.