Wayyyy too long of an answer. But I have some experience and might as well not let it go to waste. Definitely doesn’t hurt to talk with a financial advisor about it.

Always a good idea to check out market rates but your employer provided one likely has better premium rates as part of the group and with part of the payment possibly covered by your employer.

Deciding how much life insurance you should get is dependent on your personal situation, your desired coverage, and your risk tolerance.

But it’s likely that both of you having spousal coverage is a little toward overkill. I’d be more concerned about your disability coverage or the coverage of the highest-earning partner, especially if there’s a large disparity in earnings.

The main reason many people get life insurance is to make sure a non-working surviving spouse has the resources they need to get by with the same lifestyle and hopefully in the same house. So when you or your partner is not working, it’s usually the working partner that you want to have the most coverage (perhaps aligned with what would be needed to comfortably “retire” which really means just live the same lifestyle but only off investment income).

The second reason people get life insurance is to help with the short term consequences and expenses. Funerals are expensive. Debt can pile up with end of life care. Taking time off work can cause income drops. Daycare costs might need to be incurred. This is usually where the spousal coverage comes into play. Typically much lower coverage to give the working, surviving spouse a temporary boost due to death-related expensive, but not retire. Child policies are similar.

The more savings or investments you have, the lower your true need for this insurance is. If you can already comfortably retire, then it’s not a huge deal if either one passes (financially). And you have the cash to pay for short term death-related expenses.

Disability is a bigger deal to many people with substantial savings. It can mean a serious increase in expenses (to handle the disability) with a simultaneous decrease in earnings.

But some people also treat life insurance as an investment or a way to hedge specific risks. If you don’t want to work again if your spouse/partner passes, you can get increased coverage. Or if you simply like the security of getting a lump sum if one of your passes early, the premium cost might be worth it. Those are a personal decision and risk/reward calculation only you can make.

On the open market, you’ll find term and whole life. Term insurance is much lower cost because it only lasts a certain period (term). Whole life can be paid as a continuous premium until you file a claim (someone passes). People who are serious about life insurance get whole life policies and treat them as a wealth building investment. Many have cash values, where part of your premium goes into a savings-like account that builds at a certain interest rate. If you’re thinking of this, talk with a qualified advisor. And get at least 2 quotes from highly-rated and stable insurance companies.

One other thing to consider is if you get insurance through your employer, you lose it as soon as you leave. Imagine if one of you has a long-term illness that puts you out of work before dying. All of the premiums paid by that spouse would be lost with no payout.

For myself, I have just enough supplemental insurance through my employer to cover funeral expenses for my wife (who is currently in school) and my kids, no supplemental insurance for myself. I should add a term life plan for me outside work, but have not done so yet.

Also, I think you can stack different durations to account for increased savings over time. For example, you might get a 10 year and a 20 year term life plan for 500K each. If you died in the first 10 years, your family would get 1M total. Hopefully in 10 years your savings has increased enough to live with a smaller insurance payout, but you could always add more coverage then, if needed.