Life insurance when you're single with no kids: the honest answer

Here’s a sentence you won’t read on many insurance websites: you might not need life insurance. If you’re single, nobody depends on your income, and no one else is tied to your debts, the honest answer to “should I get life cover?” is genuinely “maybe not”, and any adviser worth talking to should be able to say that to your face.

That’s not the end of the article, though, because “do I need life insurance?” is usually the wrong question for a single person, asked because it’s the only insurance question anyone ever hears. The right question is hiding just behind it. Let’s do both properly.

Why is life cover a “maybe not” when you’re single?

Go back to what the product is for. Life cover may pay a lump sum to your beneficiaries if you die. Its entire job is to protect people who would be financially damaged by your death, a partner carrying the mortgage alone, kids who needed your income for the next fifteen years. If those people don’t exist, the product has nobody to protect. A payout with no financial hole to fill is just money arriving somewhere, not protection.

So the test is colder than your relationship status on paper: would anyone be left financially worse off, in a way that matters, if you died? For plenty of single people the answer is a clean no, and paying premiums against a no is money that could be doing something better.

When does the answer flip, even for singles?

“Single with no kids” covers a lot of different lives, and some of them do have someone standing in the blast radius. Worth checking honestly:

1. Anyone tied to your debts. A parent or sibling who went guarantor on your loan, or a co-borrower on a property. If your death leaves them holding your debt, that’s a dependant in every way that matters here.
2. Anyone who quietly relies on your support. Regular help with a parent’s living costs, financial support for a family member. No paperwork calls them a dependant, but your budget does.
3. A partner in fact if not on paper. Sharing a lease or mortgage with someone whose finances would take real damage without you.
4. The final costs. Funerals and estate wind-up cost real money. For some people that’s comfortably absorbed by savings or an existing super balance; for others it would land on family. Small consideration, but an honest one.
5. Where you’re headed. If a mortgage, partner or kids are realistically on the near horizon, some people weigh up sorting cover while young and healthy, since applications are assessed on your health at the time. That’s a timing consideration to weigh, not a scare, and it cuts both ways, paying for years of cover you don’t yet need has a cost too.

If you read that list and nothing landed, then the “maybe not” firms up considerably. Also worth knowing: you may already hold some default death cover inside your super that you never asked for, which makes “do I need to keep paying for this?” a live question in the other direction.

So what’s the catch?

Now for the actual point of this article, and the part that surprises people: nobody may depend on your income, but you absolutely do. Single people are, financially speaking, a one-engine aircraft. There’s no partner’s salary to catch the household if illness or injury stops you working for six months, or forever. Every bill you have is carried by one income: yours.

Which means the covers worth a single person’s attention are usually the living ones. Income protection may replace a portion of your income if you can’t work for a stretch, and TPD cover may pay a lump sum if you’re unlikely to ever work again, each subject to its policy terms and definitions. Neither needs a beneficiary to make sense. The person they protect is you.

None of this means every single person needs those covers either, that depends on your buffer, your obligations and your situation. But it’s the question that actually fits the shape of a single person’s risk, and it’s the one the “do I need life insurance?” reflex talks straight past.

Where to from here

If you take one thing from this: the goal is to cover the risks your actual life carries, not to own insurance, and sometimes that’s fewer products than the industry would love to sell you. If you’d like to pressure-test your own situation, book a no-obligation chat with Justin. If you don’t need it, we’ll tell you. That’s the whole point of advice, not a slogan.

Related reading

• The types of personal insurance
• Waiting periods explained
• Insurance in super, explained

General advice only. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Consider whether it is appropriate for you and read the relevant Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) before deciding.