Shopping around for life insurance is about as fun as filing your taxes but it doesn’t have to feel like a tax audit.

All online insurance websites have a life insurance cost calculator to make getting a quote easier. You can do it on a laptop while watching the news.

But some life insurance companies make it damn hard to get to the quote.

Why All the Questions?

Your question is “How much coverage do I need?” Unfortunately, to answer your question we must ask you questions to gain context.

Vital contextual questions include the state you live in, for instance. Life insurance regulations vary from state to state, so it’s impossible to give you an accurate quote unless we know where you live.

Other fair questions include your gender, age, weight, and smoking habits. The older and heavier you are, the more you’ll pay. If you smoke, that’ll increase your premium, too. And males have a shorter life expectancy than females.

Can We Just Get to the Quotes?

But some questions are just too invasive for a “how can I help you” conversation. And most online life insurance sites ask for everything but the name of your cat before relinquishing a quote.

Here are some of the things they want to know before you ever see a popup with dollar signs and life insurance company names:

• Your employment. Yes, it’s fair to find out if you can pay the premiums. But what does that have to do with a life insurance quote? Some carriers also want to know how many hours you work.
• Your annual income. Again, a fair question. But why up front? If they’re weeding you out based on income, they’re not interested in helping you. They’re interested in finding out if they can make money off of you.
• Your mortgage. Another question to verify you can pay your premiums. But it’s more appropriate to ask it later.
• Your level of education. Why ask this? A person over the age of 18 with an eighth-grade education can qualify for life insurance.
• Your email address. We all know what that’s about.
• Your physical address – not just your state. Your house number and street name. If you give it, expect your physical mailbox to be full of enough offers to wallpaper your kitchen. And you never know who they’re selling it to.
• How many children you have. Beneficiaries are an important discussion. Again, more appropriately asked LATER.
• Travel plans. Yep. Travel plans.
• Other invasive but fair questions that should be asked later include your driving record, your drug use, the medications you’re taking, any surgeries you’ve had, the last time you visited your doctor, your HIV status and any changes in weight. Again, all questions that can be asked LATER. If at all.

The reason PolicyWand’s EZ calculator is so easy is that we ask for only five basic pieces of information:

1. the state you live in
2. your gender
3. your date of birth
4. your opinion on your general health
5. How much coverage you need

DIY Life Insurance

If a laundry list of questions scare you off, grab a pencil and paper. There are a couple of formulas you can use to calculate how much you need for yourself.

The easiest way to find out how much life insurance you need is to multiply your current salary by the number of years you think you’ll continue to work. If you’d like to give DIY a try, check out more formulas.

But it shouldn’t be that hard. All you want is a quote. All you want to know is “How much insurance do I need?”

The way you get the answer is up to you. You can do it with invasive questions, you can do it yourself, or you can do it the EZ way. PolicyWand’s way.