I have no fear of flying. But I’m leaving on a jet plane in a few days and that’s got me thinking about life insurance.

I think I’m pondering the topic because I was a passenger on Pan Am Flight 103 exactly a week before the one that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. Timing is everything.

That ill-fated PanAm flight originated in Frankfurt, Germany. I’ll be flying Lufthansa to Frankfurt en route to Bremen. So maybe that’s what triggered the memory. But no matter what happens, I’m covered.

One of the many things that changes the instant you become a parent is your insurance profile. Life insurance matters. You don’t have to leave the country. Just walking around New York City, odds increase daily that you could get hit by a falling construction crane.

I first took out my own “real” life insurance policy -- a 20-year term -- to add to what my employer of the moment was doling out roughly two months before my daughter arrived in 1997. I used AccuQuote, one of the first online insurance agents, and had a very satisfying experience.

At the time, I used one of the industry benchmarks and bought enough insurance to cover roughly six times my annual income. A few years later, once I’d had more experience with the current and future costs of being a parent, I returned to AccuQuote and bought some more.

Within the five years from buying my first policy to buying my second, insurance pricing had dropped so dramatically that I was able to get nearly double the coverage for just $10 month more per month. My weight, cholesterol level and overall blood test results allowed me to just squeak in at the best possible rates.

If you plan to open a new term policy, and your rate could go either way, try to improve your odds by doing what I did: Wait a month or so and watch your diet to curtail fats and the artery-clogging stuff like McDonald’s (MCD) and Sara Lee (SLE). Then prepare to sail through your physical and blood work on the way to a preferred rate.

Remember to leave out details of any high-risk pursuits that won’t show up in your blood tests - like how much you like to ride helmetless on a Harley-Davidson (HOG), or your penchant for bungee jumping.

It adds up over time.

As for calculating what I’d really want to cover in the event of my premature demise, I mapped out the anticipated costs of the life I envisioned for my daughter -- with or without me -- up until the time of her presumed college graduation. It came to more than six times my income. But I did the math, and adjusted the term accordingly to get the most bang for my buck.

Some call me ghoulish, but I also keep paying on the policy I bought 11 years ago for my then-husband. As a smoker ten years my senior, his is not as cheap as mine. But if he dies within the next nine years, my daughter’s college education is covered.

If I dropped the policy and that happened, it would really kill me.

What’s your benchmark for life insurance coverage? Weigh in on The Exchange.