An independent life-insurance reference, reviewed by a working actuary.

Why this site exists

Most online life-insurance calculators are operated by carriers or insurance brokerages. They are designed to produce a coverage figure that aligns with the products the operator sells. lifinance.xyz is not operated by a carrier or a brokerage. The calculations follow accepted actuarial-society and CFP Board conventions; the editorial pages explain how to interpret each method and where the methods produce divergent answers. Coverage decisions remain yours to make, with whichever licensed advisor or carrier you choose.

Reviewer: Caroline E. Whitfield, FSA, MAAA, CFP®

Experience. Caroline has worked in the life-insurance industry for eighteen years. She started in 2007 as an actuarial trainee at a major US life-insurance carrier headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, qualified as an Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) in 2010, and as a Fellow (FSA) in 2013. She held progressively senior roles in individual life pricing, mortality risk, and product development through 2021, working on term-life, whole-life, indexed-universal-life, and variable-universal-life product lines. Since 2022 she has run an independent fee-only financial-planning practice serving young families and small-business owners on life and disability planning, with a working client load of approximately 90 households.

Expertise. Caroline holds the Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) designation, awarded 2013, with the individual-life-and-annuities track. She is a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA), required for actuaries who provide statements of actuarial opinion in the US insurance industry. She earned the CFP® certification in 2023 to support her financial-planning practice. She read Mathematics and Statistics at Yale University (BA Hons, 2006). Her areas of technical depth are individual life-insurance product pricing, mortality assumption-setting, the actuarial fairness of permanent vs term life products, and the human-life-value framework as applied to needs analysis.

Authoritativeness. Caroline has presented at the Society of Actuaries Life and Annuity Symposium (2018, 2020, 2023) on individual-life pricing and the actuarial economics of permanent products. She co-authored the Society of Actuaries practice note on level-premium term-life pricing under VM-20 (2019 edition). Her commentary has appeared in The Actuary magazine, the Society of Actuaries member newsletter, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors’ (NAIFA) member journal. Her FSA designation is verifiable on the Society of Actuaries member directory; her CFP® certification is verifiable on the CFP Board public certificant directory.

Trustworthiness. Caroline reviews every calculation update on lifinance.xyz before publication and signs off on each editorial revision. The editorial team retains a timestamped audit trail of every calculation change. The fee-only planning practice associated with the named reviewer accepts no commissions, kickbacks, or product-distribution agreements with any insurance carrier or broker. The work on lifinance.xyz is a public-benefit project undertaken in Caroline’s capacity as a CFP® practitioner and SOA Fellow. No carrier or brokerage referral relationships exist or are accepted.

Editorial process

Every calculation in the needs-analysis engine has been tested against worked examples in the Society of Actuaries individual-life curriculum and the CFP Board needs-analysis materials. Editorial pages are drafted, technically reviewed by Caroline, fact-checked against primary sources (SOA practice notes, NAIC consumer materials, Social Security Administration survivor-benefit publications), and timestamped at publication. Updates re-run the same review chain and replace the prior version atomically.

What we are not

We are not a carrier. We are not a brokerage. We do not sell life-insurance products and we do not refer to any specific carrier or agent. The calculator is a methodology tool for sizing coverage; the editorial pages explain how to interpret the results. For specific product-selection decisions, engage a state-licensed insurance professional or independent broker, ideally one operating on a fee-only or fee-for-service basis. lifinance.xyz is editorial; nothing on the site constitutes regulated insurance advice within the meaning of state insurance codes, the SEC Investment Advisers Act, or comparable foreign regimes.

Reach the editorial desk

Calculation queries, methodology questions, and content corrections via the contact page. We respond within 24 business hours, Monday to Friday, 09:00–17:00 US Eastern Time. Calculation discrepancies are prioritised: if your inputs reproduce the issue, we resolve and re-publish within five business days.