Riders are optional add-ons to a base insurance policy, sold for an extra premium, and they range from genuinely valuable to largely unnecessary depending on your situation.
A critical illness rider, which pays a lumpsum on diagnosis of a covered serious illness like cancer or a heart attack, can be genuinely useful since it provides money exactly when you're likely to face both medical costs and a loss of income, independent of whether the base policy's hospitalisation cover applies.
An accidental death benefit rider adds extra payout if death occurs due to an accident specifically — useful if you have a job or lifestyle with elevated accident risk, less essential otherwise, since your base term cover already handles death from any cause.
A waiver of premium rider, which continues your policy without further premiums if you're diagnosed with a serious illness or disability, is worth considering for the peace of mind it offers, though it does add ongoing cost. As a general rule, riders are worth it when they cover a specific, real risk in your life — not simply because they sound like reasonable extra protection at checkout.
Frequently asked questions
What is a term insurance cover calculator?
It estimates how much life insurance cover you may need, using the Human Life Value (HLV) method — the present value of your future income — rather than a simple rule of thumb, to help protect your family's financial future if something happened to you.
What is Human Life Value (HLV)?
HLV is an estimate of the total economic value you'd contribute to your family over your remaining working years, calculated by discounting your future income (growing each year) back to today's value. It's meant to represent what your family would financially lose if you weren't there to earn.
Why does the calculator discount future income instead of just adding it up?
Because money in the future is worth less than money today (the time value of money) — a lumpsum payout received today needs to be smaller than the raw sum of future income, since that payout could itself be invested and grow over time.