Disability insurance is often overlooked and underappreciated. The financial implications of becoming disabled and no longer able to work can be even more catastrophic to your family than if you were to die.
When evaluating insurance consider how much coverage you would need in order to meet your major financial obligations and how that will change over time. People often buy insufficient coverage but for longer time periods than they will need it.
Say, hypothetically, you are about 30 and have a young family, a big mortgage and some modest savings. Your obligations (mortgage, cost of kid's education etc.) are likely much greater than your assets and you would plan to pay those expenses out of your employment income. If, God forbid, you could no longer work due to death/disability or illness then you or your family will need to meet those expenses some other way. If that were to happen tomorrow then you'd need a very substantial insurance payout to cover things. Now jump ahead 20 years or so, your kids are now young adults (hopefully supporting themselves,) the mortgage is either paid off or getting fairly close to it and you're on track with your retirement savings, you really don't need that much insurance coverage anymore if any at all. Sadly lots of people buy insurance that won't payout enough in the short term if they should need it, but provides more coverage than they'll need later on (and of course they end up paying a lot for the longevity of that coverage.) It's a worst-of-both-worlds situation where you don't have enough coverage when you need it, but pay a lot more for it.
As Ovr50 said your individual circumstances will dictate what insurance coverage you might need. Before going out and actually shopping for a policy you should read up on the basics since shopping for insurance is a lot more complicated than shopping for a car.
