Explains Shweta Jain, financial planner, CEO and founder of Investography, a financial planning firm: "For example, Rs 50,000 is the monthly expense, annual is Rs 6 lakh, and the corpus needed to give this as interest is Rs 1 crore. So if you had this Rs 1 crore, you wouldn't need insurance, but since we don't, we take this amount less any assets you have that can generate income. So if your portfolio is Rs 25 lakh, you need a cover of Rs 75 lakh. Don't calculate your house if you own one because your family will need that to live in, and that can't be used to generate income. Add any liabilities and loans you have to this and whatever aspirations you have for your kids. Say Rs 50 lakh for liability and Rs 35 lakh for your kids' education. So you need a cover of Rs 1.6 crore. This is the easy way. Please remember it doesn't account for future inflation. So, that could be added as well, but this is a good starting point."