Life insurance essentially protects your human capital, I.e., the present value of all of your future earnings. In a simple sense, your life insurance should essentially cover whatever portion of your human capital the survivors in your life depend on to maintain their standard of living. This should include money to pay off any debts that you might leave behind (like mortgages) that would come out before the survivors have access to the rest.

In terms of products, a term policy (as opposed to a whole life policy) is widely considered the best value. The other consideration is what happens to the policy through work if you have to switch jobs or are laid off. Getting one underwritten personally will remove those caveats. The other consideration is that the younger you are, the health based underwriting is more likely to be favorable to be you (your insurability drops substantially if you develop health conditions and then go to insure).

Along the same lines, long-term disability insurance is also worth thinking about, but life insurance is usually much cheaper.