Comprehensive Guide
Learn more in our Insurance Guide.
How it works
A group life portability check quantifies the uncomfortable truth about employer-provided life insurance: it is real coverage with a landlord problem, because the policy belongs to the employer's contract, not to you. The checker totals what your workplace provides — the basic multiple of salary, often employer-paid, plus any voluntary supplement you elect at age-banded rates — and measures it against your family's genuine need from a proper analysis. Two findings usually emerge. First, even while employed, group coverage alone frequently undershoots the need, since two-times salary is a payroll convention rather than a planning number. Second, and more corrosive, is dependency: the share of your family's protection that evaporates with a layoff, a resignation or a retirement. Basic group coverage almost never ports at all. Supplemental voluntary life sometimes ports, but at re-rated premiums that abandon the group discount, and the portability election window is typically thirty-one days after termination — a deadline nobody grieving a job loss is positioned to research. The supplemental premiums tallied until your likely change date frame the alternative: those dollars redirected into an owned level-term policy buy coverage that answers to no HR department, survives every job change, and locks insurability while you are young and healthy. Group life is excellent free money; the error is treating free money as a foundation.Formula
group coverage = salary x multiple + supplemental | gap = max(0, need - group coverage) | dependency = group coverage / need
Tips
- Enroll in free basic group life every year — declining free coverage is pure loss.
- Treat supplemental elections as bridges, not foundations; their age-banded rates climb every fifth birthday.
- Own at least one personal policy sized to the real need so insurability never depends on employment.
- Mark the thirty-one-day post-termination portability window now — it is the most missed deadline in benefits.
- Recheck the gap at every open enrollment; raises raise the multiple, but rarely the adequacy.
Frequently asked questions
Is employer-provided life insurance enough?
Rarely. Two-times salary is a benefits convention, not a family plan — a household with children and a mortgage typically needs several times that, and the coverage vanishes entirely with the job. Group life works best as a free top-up layered over an individually owned policy sized to genuine need.
Can I keep group life insurance after leaving my job?
Basic employer-paid coverage almost never ports. Voluntary supplemental coverage often can, but only if elected within a narrow window — typically thirty-one days — and at re-rated premiums reflecting your attained age rather than the group discount, which can mean doubling or worse. Individual term usually undercuts ported group rates substantially.
How much does supplemental group life really cost?
Rates are age-banded per thousand of coverage and rise at each five-year bracket — cents in your twenties, meaningfully more by your fifties and sixties. Because pricing resets upward with every bracket while you stay enrolled, long-held supplemental coverage quietly becomes expensive relative to a level term policy bought young.
Does group life insurance require a medical exam?
Basic coverage usually guarantees issuance up to a limit, and supplemental amounts under a threshold — often one to three hundred thousand — frequently skip exams during initial enrollment windows. Larger elections trigger evidence of insurability. That easy access is precisely why owning portable coverage before health changes matters.
What happens to my group life coverage if I'm laid off?
Coverage terminates with employment, typically the last day of the month. Your rights afterward: the limited portability election on supplemental coverage if offered, conversion of some portion to individual permanent coverage at unattractive rates, and — the practical move — a special enrollment window to buy individual term on the marketplace of insurers competing for exactly this moment.