The Human Life Value calculator creates a Modeled adult Family Coverage goal from the assumptions entered on the tool. It is available on Starter and Builder Pro.
What It Models
The tool opens on a chooser. Pick how you want to work the number out, and that way opens with only the fields it needs.
- A multiple of your income — your age picks a number, and the tool multiplies what you earn by it: 30× at age 40 or under, 20× from 41–50, 15× from 51–60, 10× from 61–65, and 5× from 66 on. A 45-year-old earning $100,000 models to $2,000,000.
- The paychecks still ahead of you — add up the paychecks between now and the day you stop. Enter what you earn, your age, and the age you stop working. Someone aged 44 earning $150,000 who stops at 65 models to $3,150,000.
- A nest egg that pays your income — how big a nest egg would have to be to pay you that much forever. Enter what you earn and pick a yearly withdrawal rate from the eight the tool offers. $150,000 at 4% models to $3,750,000.
The three ways land on different numbers because they ask different questions. Policy Stack does not say which number is right.
There is also a fourth situation, shown below the three ways:
- Carried from your partner — for a person who does not earn a paycheck at a job. Pick a partner who already has a saved Human Life Value goal of their own. The tool carries that goal across in full when it is under $1,000,000, or at half when it is $1,000,000 or more. It needs a partner recorded on your family map who already holds a goal from their own earned income.
Every result stays Modeled and illustrative. The calculator does not use a growth rate, a discount rate, or a year-by-year schedule.
A saved goal records which way produced it. Reviewing that goal from the Family Coverage map reopens that same way with its inputs filled in, and the person panel names the way beside the amount.
Older saved scenarios keep the total and assumptions recorded at the time they were saved, stamped with their own methodology version. Reopening one does not recalculate it against the current method.
Choose a Person
When living Family Coverage people exist, Who is this for? lists them by name, including children. Model without saving keeps the calculator available for standalone exploration. Names identify the selected person in the calculator and in the Family Coverage review link; the URL uses only the person's id.
Save as an Adult Goal
Saving a named goal requires confirming that the selected person is an adult. This is a per-save assertion: Policy Stack does not derive adulthood from a birth date or persist an adult/child classification. The confirmation stores an immutable HLV scenario with the inputs, methodology version, and result. That saved scenario becomes the selected Modeled Family Coverage goal for that person.
Saving a new scenario does not rewrite the old one. It creates a new snapshot and moves the selected marker. Saving an earned-income goal also refreshes a partner's already-derived goal, if one exists, so the derived goal never drifts behind the income it was built from. Switching to a different way moves your own number, which can move that partner's number too — the tool names the partner and both amounts before you save.
Where It Appears
Family Coverage displays the saved HLV result beside Actual recorded policy death benefit for the same person. Review links identify the person by name and reopen the way that produced the goal, with its saved inputs filled in. A goal saved under a retired method has no current way, so the person panel names none and the review link opens the chooser. Family Coverage imports the saved snapshot; it does not recalculate Human Life Value on the map.
Child coverage cards remain based on recorded policy values. Being listed in the picker does not classify a person as an adult or make a child eligible to save an earned-income goal.