A Protection Gap Score, opened by the life events that make it matter.
What your family would need vs. what you actually have — income replacement, disability, and the Social Security decisions that are hard to undo. This edition doesn't have a composite score yet: the rubric is still in design, per the same guardrail that keeps Products a directory. What's below is real: the published anchors the score will eventually weigh.
What could actually happen before retirement age
Absolute probabilities, not relative risk — the same honest icon-array treatment every edition uses.
SSA actuaries: a 20-year-old man has a 10.6% chance of dying before retirement age without ever qualifying as disabled; a woman 5.4% (combined 8.0%).
23.7% of today's 20-year-old workers will qualify for Social Security disability before age 67 — under a definition stricter than most private policies (≥12 months or fatal).
Coverage and cushion, as they stand today
51% of adults own life insurance; 40% (~100 million adults) say they need it or more of it; 47% would face hardship within 6 months of a primary earner's death.
The median unemployment spell is 10.5 weeks — but 1 in 4 unemployed Americans has been out of work more than 6 months.
Two corrections worth knowing before you decide anything
63% of adults would cover a $400 surprise expense with cash or equivalent; only 13% could not pay it by ANY means.
Social Security is at least half of family income for 39.9% of beneficiaries 65+ — and at least 90% for 13.8% (about 1 in 7), per admin-linked data. The old survey-only figures (52.5%/25.6%) are deprecated.
Claiming triggers
qualifying_criteria is a required field on every row — there's always a real trigger condition, not a guess.
Workers born 1960+ (FRA 67)
Claiming Social Security at 62 permanently cuts the benefit 30% (FRA 67); each year of delay to 70 adds 8%. In 2023, 22.9% of new awards were at 62 and only 8.6% at 70 or later.
How the risk compounds later in a career
SSDI incidence roughly doubles each decade of later working life: ~5 awards per 1,000 insured at 45–49, ~8 at 50–54, ~14 at 55–59, ~18 at 60–64 (men; women similar).
CoverScore provides general educational information about insurance, not insurance advice. We are not a licensed insurance agent, broker, or consultant. Figures shown are drawn from your own policy documents and from published sources, which are cited. For advice about your specific situation, talk to a licensed insurance professional.