This is #1 of a series of illustrations explaining life insurance. This first series shows a Family of 4 that has the Main Income Earner, Stay at home parent, 5 year old & 3 year old. Lets start....
#1 - Main Income Earner Details
Lets start with Debt... this example shows $5,000 in credit card debt, $15,000 in car loan debt, and $40,000 in student loan debt. The total debt that would need to be paid off in case of a loss of life for this person would be $60,000.
Next is the income replacement. In this case the main income earner in this family brings home $100,000 per year of salary + bonuses. We know the children are 3 & 5 years old. To allow the stay at home parent to continue to be a stay at home parent we would want at least 15 years of income replacement to allow their lifestyle to stay the same until the children are at age 20 & 18 years old and off to college. This takes care of food, utilities, travel expenses, extra curricular activities, entertainment, groceries, taxes, retirement savings/investment savings... etc. The total income replacement would add up to $1,500,000. 
The next need is to take care of the Mortgage. We want to be sure that they will be able to continue to stay in the home that they built their life in. The total needed for this is $500,000.
We now come to the part of Life Insurance that takes care of Final Expense. This takes care of Funeral Costs, Travel expenses for out-of-towners, and memorial expenses. The total average expense is $15,000. 
Another coverage to consider is an Education Fund for the children. We have a 3 & 5 year old, we can assume a small fund has been started, but to fully fund the account if a loss of the main income earner occurs, we will provide an extra $20,000 per child. The total benefit would be $40,000. 
Charitable Donations can be a death benefit as well. If you have an organization that you volunteer for, donate to or are passionate about, you can have a policy that has the beneficiary as that foundation or organization. The total amount they wanted to leave is $50,000. 
When you add up the all of the needs for life insurance we come to quite a large number $2,165,000. Now here is why this number is so very important. Most employers offer a life insurance policy (while you are still employed with them) of 1x-3x your annual income. Lets be generous and say that their employer gives them a 3x their annual income. That adds up to be $300,000. Fantastic! That now tells us that this Main Income Earner now only needs $1,865,000 as a total death benefit. Before you ask... Yes, investments could be added into the amount of benefit used at death... but would you really want to do that? or would you want to continue to add to those and build them? Your call. 
Are you curious to see what see what your number would be? I'd love to help you out! We will go over these areas that are specific to you.
"A man who dies without adequate life insurance should have to come back and see the mess he created."
- Will Rogers
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