Free Assessment
Answer 5 quick questions to get a score from 0 to 100 that shows how well your family is financially protected if the unexpected happens.
FDs, mutual funds, stocks, PPF, etc.
Total sum assured of all policies
Spouse income, rental, pension, etc.
A Family Protection Score is a single number — on a scale of 0 to 100 — that summarises how financially resilient your family would be if you were no longer there. Think of it as a financial health check, but focused exclusively on protection gaps rather than growth.
Where a portfolio review looks at whether your investments are on track to build wealth, a protection score looks at whether your family's financial survival is secure against the unexpected. It considers five key dimensions: life insurance coverage adequacy, income replacement capacity, debt coverage, emergency fund status, and health insurance status.
A score of 0 means your family has essentially no financial buffer — a single adverse event could leave them in financial distress. A score of 100 means your family is comprehensively protected across all major risk dimensions. Most people score somewhere between 30 and 70, with clear, specific gaps that can be addressed with targeted interventions. The score is a starting point, not a verdict — what matters is the action plan that follows.
The score is derived from five weighted components, each assessed based on your answers to the questions in the assessment above.
This component measures whether your existing life insurance coverage — including term plans, employer group cover, and any traditional policies — is adequate relative to your income, liabilities, and dependents. Coverage equal to 20 times your annual income scores full marks on this dimension; coverage below 5 times your annual income scores close to zero. It is the highest-weighted component because for most families, adequate life insurance is the single most important protection measure.
If you lost your primary income tomorrow, how long could your family sustain their current lifestyle on existing liquid savings? Less than 3 months of expenses in liquid form scores very low on this dimension. Having 12 or more months of income in accessible savings scores high. This reflects your family's resilience to income disruption — whether temporary (job loss, illness) or permanent.
This component checks whether your existing life insurance sum assured is sufficient to clear all major liabilities — home loan, car loan, personal loans — without depleting the income replacement corpus. High debt with low coverage pulls this score down significantly, because even a full insurance payout can leave a family net negative once liabilities are cleared.
A ₹5 lakh individual health insurance policy is no longer adequate in Indian tier-1 cities where hospitalisation bills can exceed ₹10–15 lakh for major procedures like cardiac surgery, cancer treatment, or organ transplants. This component assesses whether your health cover — individual or family floater — is adequate for your city, family size, and age. It also checks whether you have personal health cover independent of your employer.
An emergency fund of 3–6 months of expenses is the baseline of any sound financial plan. Without it, every financial setback — a medical bill, a job gap, a vehicle repair — forces families to borrow at high interest rates or liquidate long-term investments at an inopportune time. This component measures whether you have a meaningful liquid buffer in place.
Your family has significant unaddressed protection gaps. A major unexpected event — death, disability, critical illness, or even a prolonged job loss — could leave them in financial distress. Immediate action is needed: at minimum, buy a term insurance plan and set up a personal health insurance policy.
You have taken some steps toward protection — perhaps a basic life insurance policy or employer-provided health cover — but there are meaningful gaps. Your family might weather a moderate setback but would struggle with a major one. Prioritise your largest gap and address it first.
You are on the right track. You have a reasonable baseline of protection but room for improvement. Common gaps at this level: insufficient emergency fund, health cover that is too low for your city, or life insurance that has not kept pace with income growth and new liabilities.
Your family has solid financial protection across most dimensions. Remaining improvements are refinements rather than urgent gaps — perhaps upgrading health cover from ₹5 lakh to ₹15 lakh, or adding a critical illness rider to your term plan.
You have addressed all major protection dimensions. Your family would be financially resilient to a wide range of adverse events. The main task now is maintenance: review annually and update whenever your financial situation changes significantly.
Understanding the most common drivers of low scores helps you know where to focus first.
The single biggest driver of a low protection score is having people who depend on your income, combined with insufficient life insurance to replace that income. Many Indians have traditional policies — endowment or money-back plans — that provide only ₹5–25 lakh of coverage, which is completely inadequate for income replacement. A pure term plan with a sum assured of at least 15–20 times your annual income is the most cost-effective solution.
A large home loan that is not covered by your term insurance sum assured creates a double jeopardy for your family: they lose your income and inherit your debt simultaneously. If your outstanding home loan is ₹60 lakh and your term insurance is only ₹50 lakh, your family is technically net negative before any income replacement even begins. The coverage calculator can help you understand your exact gap.
The most common protection gap after life insurance is health cover. Many Indians rely exclusively on employer-provided group health insurance — typically ₹3–5 lakh — which is lost the moment you change jobs or retire. A personal family floater health plan of at least ₹10–15 lakh (more in metro cities) provides portable coverage that stays with you regardless of your employment status.
Without liquid savings equivalent to 3–6 months of expenses, every financial setback forces a family to borrow or liquidate long-term investments. Insurance is meant to handle catastrophic events; an emergency fund handles the more frequent, smaller disruptions. Without both layers, a family's financial security rests on a single point of failure.
India has a well-documented underinsurance problem. IRDAI's annual reports consistently show that the average life insurance coverage in India is a fraction of the income-replacement level that financial planners recommend. Much of this gap is invisible to families — they only discover it when a claim event forces the issue.
The consequences of underinsurance are real and long-lasting. When a primary earner dies underinsured, families typically face forced liquidation of savings, children changing from private to government schools, dependent parents losing their support, and in the worst cases, inability to service the home loan and loss of the family's primary asset.
Protection planning is not about pessimism. It is about acknowledging a statistical reality — that the unexpected happens to real families — and ensuring yours has an adequate financial buffer if it does. For most Indian families, comprehensive protection costs a fraction of monthly income. The cost of not having it, however, can be the loss of everything built over a working lifetime.
At minimum, once a year — ideally at the start of the financial year when you are reviewing your overall finances. Additionally, reassess whenever you have a major life change: buying a home, having a child, changing jobs, receiving a significant salary increase, taking a new loan, or losing a policy.
It depends entirely on your income, liabilities, and family situation. For a 30-year-old with a ₹50 lakh home loan, a non-earning spouse, two young children, and a ₹10 lakh annual income, ₹1 crore provides only about 5 years of income replacement after clearing the home loan — significantly short of the recommended 15–20 years. Use the Coverage Calculator to check your specific situation.
It counts, but with a significant caveat: employer cover is conditional on employment. If you change jobs, are laid off, take a career break, or retire early, you lose it. Employer cover should be treated as a bonus on top of your personal term plan, not as a substitute for it. The protection score treats personal cover and employer cover differently for exactly this reason.
A score above 70 means your family has solid baseline protection and would survive a major adverse event without being financially ruined. It is not a guarantee against all financial hardship, but it means the fundamentals are in place. The closer to 100, the more comprehensively protected your family is across all dimensions.
Dependent parents increase your coverage need substantially — both in life insurance (to provide for their care in your absence) and in your income replacement calculation. If your parents are not covered by health insurance separately, this also becomes a significant health cover gap. Factor in your parents' dependency explicitly when calculating your coverage need using the Coverage Calculator.