Choosing your term length: 10, 20, or 30 years

Most people pick a term length by feel. Twenty sounds reasonable, thirty sounds safer, ten sounds cheap. That is guessing, and it costs money in both directions. There is a better method, and it takes about five minutes: find the year your family stops depending on your income, then buy exactly that many years. This page shows you how to run it.

The Coverage Handoff

Everything below comes out of one idea, so it is worth thirty seconds up front.

Two things move across your working life, in opposite directions.

Your responsibility falls. Children grow up and move out. The mortgage balance shrinks with every payment. Consumer debt gets paid off. And the number of years of income your family would still have to replace gets smaller every year that passes.

Your assets rise. Savings, retirement accounts, and home equity accumulate. Slowly at first, then faster.

Early on, the distance between those two lines is enormous. At 32 you have young children, a large mortgage, thirty-odd years of income to replace, and very little saved. That is the point of maximum need and minimum ability to pay for it, which is exactly why you want every dollar buying death benefit and nothing else bolted on.

Then the lines converge. Eventually they cross. Past that point your own assets would carry your family without you, and any coverage still in force is insuring a risk that no longer exists.

We call that crossing point the handoff point, and the approach the Coverage Handoff. Your policy carries the responsibility until your assets can carry it themselves. Then it hands off and ends. That is not the policy failing or running out. That is the plan working the way it was built to work.

Two things follow from it, and they are the reason we do not place certain products.

Permanent coverage charges a lifetime premium for a temporary need. The savings component inside it also competes for the same dollars that move your asset line up. You pay more for the coverage and you reach the handoff point later. Both directions work against you.

Renewing a term policy is a safety net, not a plan. Most policies let you continue past the level period, and it is good that they do, because a veteran whose health failed at 58 is better off with that option than without it. But the price on the far side is the steepest in the market, and paying it means you arrived at the end of the term still needing coverage. Good that it is there. Ruinous to need it.

So the term length question is really one question. How many years until the handoff?

The method: count the obligations

Three numbers. Write them down.

Years until your youngest child is independent. Most people use age 22, which covers through college. If your youngest is 6, that is 16 years.

Years left on your mortgage. Not the original term. What is left. Pull the statement.

Years until you reach financial independence. The year your savings, investments, and any pension would carry your family without your paycheck. Not age 65, and not whenever you picture yourself stopping work. Retirement is a date. Financial independence is a number, and if you save seriously it arrives before the date does.

Take the largest of the three. That is your handoff point, and your term. Round up to the next length actually available to you. Tens are the most common, but 15, 25, and 35 year terms exist, and they are worth asking for. The closer the term sits to your handoff point, the fewer years you spend insuring a risk you have already retired.

Say your youngest is 6, your mortgage has 18 years left, and your assets are roughly 22 years from covering the need on their own. Your handoff point is 22 years out, so you buy 25 years. Not 30, which would have you paying for eight years past the handoff. If your youngest is 14, your mortgage has 11 years left, and you already have substantial savings, your handoff point is 8 years out, and 10 years is the honest answer. Buying 20 there is buying a decade of coverage for a family that no longer needs it.

That is the whole method. It replaces guessing with counting.

What the extra decade actually costs

More term costs more, and the increase is not gentle. A 30-year policy prices in the years when you are considerably older, which is when the risk of a claim rises sharply. You are paying for those years across the whole term, in every payment, from the first one.

Worse, if your handoff point is 20 years out, that extra decade is buying coverage for years when your assets were already going to carry the load. You are paying to insure a risk you spent twenty years eliminating.

So the question is not "is longer safer." It is "am I buying years my family actually needs."

This is also why it is worth asking what lengths you can actually get. Most people frame this as 20 versus 30 because those are the two numbers everyone quotes. If your handoff point is 22, neither one is right, and 25 is sitting there. Ask.

Here is the failure that costs the most: buying a 30-year term at a face amount you can barely afford, when a 20-year term would have let you buy the coverage amount your family genuinely needs. Being underinsured for the years that matter is worse than being uninsured for years that do not. Adjust the term before you adjust the amount. That is rule three in how to lower your term life premium.

The ladder: two policies instead of one

There is a technique worth knowing, and almost nobody explains it.

Instead of one large policy for 30 years, buy two. A larger one for 20 years, covering the child-raising and mortgage years when your family's need is at its peak. A smaller one for 30 years, covering the long tail after the kids are grown and the mortgage is gone.

This is the Coverage Handoff drawn as a staircase instead of a single step. Your responsibility does not fall off a cliff in one year, it declines in stages, so your coverage comes off in stages to match. A single flat policy either overbuys the later years or underbuys the early ones. Two policies follow the shape of the actual need.

The in-between lengths help here too. A 15 paired with a 30, or a 20 paired with a 35, can track your actual decline more closely than the usual 20-and-30 pairing.

The total cost is often lower than one 30-year policy at the full amount, because you stop paying for the large amount during the years you no longer need it. Ask for both structures priced side by side and compare the totals.

What happens when the term ends

This is the part people do not read, and it matters to your choice.

When a level term period ends, the policy does not usually stop. Most continue as annual renewable term, where the price resets every year based on your age at that point. The first renewal year is typically a very large jump, and it climbs steeply from there. It is priced to be temporary, not to be lived in.

Understand what that feature is for. It is a catch, and a worthwhile one. If your health has failed and the term is running out, being able to continue without reapplying is genuinely valuable, and a policy that simply stopped dead would be worse.

Use it as a safety net, never as a plan. Plan for the term to reach your handoff point and end there. If you find yourself pricing a renewal, the useful question is not "how do I afford this," it is "why did the asset line not get where it needed to be," and that is a savings problem rather than an insurance one.

One feature worth checking before you buy, for a different reason. Many term policies include a conversion privilege, which lets you exchange the policy without new health questions if your health changes mid-term. That is worth understanding as a hedge against becoming uninsurable, not as a reason to want lifetime coverage. The details are in convertible term life insurance, explained.

The veteran angle

Two things make this decision different if you served.

Level term holds one price. VGLI does not. Veterans' Group Life Insurance is priced in five-year age bands, and the premium rises at every band. A level term policy holds a single price for the entire term you chose. Notice what that means against the handoff: VGLI's cost climbs fastest in exactly the years your responsibility is falling fastest. It is priced against the shape of your need rather than with it. Run the comparison in VGLI vs term life before you assume the VA program is the cheaper path.

Your age at application sets the price for the whole term. Not your age when you claim. Not your age at renewal. The day you apply. That is why waiting a year to decide has a permanent cost, covered in how age changes your rate.

Frequently asked questions

Should I get a 20-year or 30-year term policy?

Count the years until your youngest child is independent, the years left on your mortgage, and the years until your assets would carry your family without your income. Take the largest and round up to the next available length. Do not assume the choice is only 20 or 30. Terms are also written at 15, 25, and 35 years, and if your number lands at 22 or 26 those in-between lengths are the better fit. Ask what is available before you settle for a round number.

Is a longer term always better?

No. A longer term costs more in every payment, and the extra years often cover a period when your savings would already have carried your family. If that cost also pushes you to buy less coverage than your family needs today, the longer term made you worse off twice over.

What happens when my term life insurance ends?

Most policies continue as annual renewable term, repriced each year at your then-current age. The first renewal is usually a steep jump and it rises from there. It is a useful safety net if your health has changed and you have no other options, and a very expensive way to hold coverage otherwise. Plan for the term to end, not to be renewed.

Can I have two term policies at once?

Yes, and it is a deliberate strategy. A larger short policy plus a smaller long one follows the shape of your family's actual need and often costs less than one large long policy.

How long should a veteran's term policy be?

The same method applies as for anyone else. The one veteran-specific factor is that a level term policy holds one price while VGLI rises with every five-year age band, so the longer your horizon, the more that difference matters.

Your next step

Take the quiz, Which Coverage Fits You? It sets both the amount and the term worth pricing, which is where this decision actually gets made. Or get the free guide, "Leaving the Service: Your Life Insurance Decision Guide".

Sources: VA, Veterans' Group Life Insurance (va.gov/life-insurance/options-eligibility/vgli/). Accessed August 15, 2026.