How much life cover you need, using income replacement plus debts.
Cover gap
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Total needs
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Income replacement
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The question this tool is really answering
If you died tomorrow, would the people who depend on you be able to keep the lights on, finish school fees, and clear what you owe? Life cover exists to turn that frightening question into a number. This calculator uses the needs approach, which is the method most advisers in Kenya reach for first. Rather than picking a round figure out of the air, it builds the cover from what your family would actually have to replace, then subtracts what they already have. The output is a cover gap: the extra sum assured a policy would need to provide.
There is no tax computed inside this result. The arithmetic is plain addition and subtraction of shillings. The only tax angle, and it is a useful one, sits on the premium you would pay to buy the cover. Life premiums qualify for insurance relief at 15 percent, capped at KES 5,000 a month, which is a credit the KRA allows against your PAYE. That relief does not change how much cover you need; it quietly lowers the running cost of holding it.
Building the gap, brick by brick
Work through the defaults this tool loads. Annual income is KES 1.2 million and you want to replace it for ten years, which gives KES 12 million of income replacement. Add KES 2 million of outstanding debts, a home loan say, and KES 300,000 for final expenses, and the total need comes to KES 14.3 million. Now take off what already exists: nothing in existing cover here, and KES 500,000 in liquid savings your family could draw on. The gap that remains is KES 13.8 million. That is the headline figure: the sum assured a new policy would have to carry to fill the hole.
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The chart stacks the three needs into one tall column on the left, then shows the savings being lifted off to leave the gap on the right. The dark slice is the cushion your family already has; the teal is what a policy still needs to cover.
Where the simple method gets it wrong
The needs approach is a strong starting point, but it makes one quiet assumption you should question: it ignores inflation and investment growth. Replacing KES 1.2 million a year for ten years assumes the cash just sits there and is spent. In reality a lump sum can be invested to throw off income, which argues for less cover, while rising living costs over a decade argue for more. The two pull in opposite directions and roughly offset for many families, but if your dependants are young children who will need support for fifteen or twenty years, ten years of income replacement is probably too thin. Stretch the years input to match how long they would genuinely lean on your earnings.
Who this is built for
It is for anyone with people who rely on their income: a spouse, children, ageing parents, or a business partner tied to a shared loan. A practical tip on the existing-cover box: include the group life cover many Kenyan employers provide, often a multiple of your salary, because that can shrink the gap meaningfully. But remember group cover usually ends when the job does, so do not lean on it as your only protection if you change employers often.
Does my employer's group life cover count?
Yes, put it in the existing-cover field while you hold the job, because it genuinely reduces the gap a personal policy must fill. The catch is portability: group schemes typically cover you only while you are employed there, so if you resign or are let go the cover lapses. Treat it as a top-up to a personal policy you own, not a replacement for one.
Will the insurance relief make my cover free?
No, but it helps. The 15 percent relief applies to the premium you pay, not the sum assured, and it is capped at KES 5,000 of relief a month. So on a modest premium it trims your effective cost; on a large premium the cap bites and the saving is fixed. Confirm the current relief rate and cap with the KRA, since reliefs are adjusted by Finance Acts from time to time.