Guides
How long a term should you buy: 10, 20 or 30 years
Pick a term that runs until your last big obligation ends: youngest child grown, mortgage paid, retirement funded. How to find that date and when to round up.
Buy a term that lasts until your death would no longer leave anyone in financial trouble: usually the year your youngest child is self-supporting, your mortgage is paid off and your savings could carry a surviving spouse through retirement. For most young families that points to 20 or 30 years; a 10-year term fits shorter, specific needs. When your answer falls between two lengths, rounding up usually costs little if you are young and healthy, and a lot more if you wait.
Start with the date your last big obligation ends
Term length is a timing question, separate from how much coverage you need (for that, see How much life insurance do I need?). Write down each obligation your income supports and the year it ends:
- Children. The year your youngest finishes school, or college if you plan to pay for it. A newborn today means roughly 18 to 22 years.
- Mortgage. The year the loan is paid off on its current schedule, not the year you hope to pay it off.
- A spouse's retirement. The year your partner could live on savings, pensions and Social Security without your paycheck.
- Other debts. Private student loans you cosigned, a business loan, a car note. Most federal student loans are discharged at death, but private loans may not be.
- Support for a parent or relative who depends on you.
Your term should end at the latest of these dates, not the first. The How long a term do I need? runs this exercise for you.
Common situations and the terms that usually fit them
| Your situation | Term to consider | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Newborn or toddlers, new 30-year mortgage | 25 to 30 years | Covers childhood, college and most or all of the mortgage |
| Children in elementary school, about 20 years left on the mortgage | 20 years | Ends around the time the kids are grown and the house is paid |
| Teenagers, mortgage mostly paid | 10 to 15 years | Covers the last stretch of dependence |
| In your 50s, bridging to retirement | 10 to 15 years | Protects income until savings take over |
| Covering one specific loan | Match the loan's remaining term | Coverage ends when the debt does |
| A need that never ends, such as lifelong care for a dependent | Term may not fit | Permanent coverage, or a mix of both, is worth pricing |
Why rounding up is often cheap when you're young
Adding years to a term costs little when those extra years fall at ages when death is still unlikely, and a lot when they fall at older ages.
State Farm's public term life page, checked in October 2026, shows sample Select Term rates for a 25-year-old woman in excellent health in Illinois buying $250,000 of coverage: $172.50 a year for a 10-year term, $175.00 for a 20-year term and $220.00 for a 30-year term (source). In that example, twice the years of coverage cost $2.50 more a year. Those are one company's sample rates for one profile, not a market average, but the reason behind them is general: for a 25-year-old, the extra years run only into her 40s and 50s, when death is still uncommon. State Farm is used here only because it publishes sample prices.
The math changes with age. Using the Social Security Administration's 2023 period life table, the general-population odds of a man dying within the term look like this:
| Age at purchase | Within 10 years | Within 20 years | Within 30 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 35 | 3.1% | 7.9% | 17.7% |
| 45 | 5.0% | 15.1% | 32.6% |
| 50 | 7.2% | 21.1% | 44.3% |
For women the figures are lower (at 35: 1.6%, 4.5% and 10.8%). People who pass life insurance underwriting are healthier than average, so their real odds are lower, but the shape matches: each extra decade costs more than the last, and much more after 45. The odds of outliving your term shows your own numbers.
Age limits can make the choice for you
Insurers stop offering long terms well before they stop offering short ones, because a 30-year policy sold at 60 would run to 90. Banner Life's 2026 product specifications for its OPTerm policies, for example, list these maximum issue ages for nonsmokers: 75 for a 10-year term, 70 for 20 years, 55 for 30 years and 45 for its 40-year term. Smokers face lower limits on the longer terms. Banner Life describes itself as one of the few insurers offering terms as long as 40 years. In your late 50s, 20 or 25 years may be the longest term on offer, which is one more reason not to put off the decision.
Too long versus too short
The two mistakes are not equally costly.
Too long means you pay somewhat more than necessary for years you may not need. You can fix it: you can cancel a term policy at any time with no surrender charge, and many insurers let you reduce the face amount later.
Too short is harder to undo. When the level period ends, you can usually keep the policy, but a 2021 Society of Actuaries study found first-year renewal premiums as high as 10, 20 or even 30 times the level rate. Buying a new policy means new underwriting at an older age, and any health problems that developed in the meantime will raise the price or block approval.
Because extra years can be dropped but missing years can't easily be added, lean longer when you're unsure. Also check the conversion privilege: many policies only let you convert to permanent coverage before a deadline, sometimes earlier than the end of the term, and a longer term usually means a longer window.
Laddering: more than one length at once
Your need for coverage usually shrinks over time as the mortgage balance falls, savings grow and children leave home. Instead of one large policy, you can buy two or three smaller ones with different lengths, so total coverage steps down as obligations end. A family might pair a 30-year policy for the long-term income need with a 20-year policy that covers the child-rearing years. The term life ladder builder lets you test combinations.
A worked example
This is a hypothetical illustration. Say Jordan and Sam are both 33, with children aged 1 and 3 and a mortgage that has 29 years left. They plan to help with college.
- Youngest child through college: about 21 years, to Jordan and Sam's mid-50s.
- Mortgage paid off: 29 years.
- Retirement savings on track to support a survivor: they estimate age 62, also 29 years away.
The latest date is 29 years out, so a 30-year term on each of them covers everything. If the 30-year price on the full amount strains the budget, they could put part of the coverage on a 20-year term for the college and childcare years and the rest on a 30-year term for the mortgage and retirement gap. Whichever they choose, they review it every few years: if they pay off the house early, they can trim the coverage.
Where to read more
Each common length has its own trade-offs: 10-year term life insurance: who it suits for short horizons, 20-year term life insurance explained for the middle of the road, and 30-year term life insurance: pros and cons for the longest common lock-in. If you already own a policy that's ending, see what happens when your term life policy expires.
Key takeaways
- Choose the term that ends at the latest of your major obligations: youngest child independent, mortgage paid, survivor's retirement funded.
- For young, healthy buyers, a longer term often costs only slightly more; past about 45, each added decade costs substantially more.
- Insurers cap issue ages for long terms, so 30-year coverage is often unavailable after the mid-50s.
- A term that's too long can be cancelled or reduced; a term that's too short leads to steep renewal rates or new underwriting at an older age.
- Laddering two or three policies of different lengths can match coverage to needs that shrink over time.