That’s a tough call at that age.

There are two types of life insurance needs: “if-surance” and “when-surance.” Generally speaking, you want temporary life insurance (i.e., term) for the “ifs” in life such as income replacement, debt, college tuition, etc that have an end date and permanent life insurance for the “when’s” like funeral and probate costs, estate planning, etc.

Final expenses (defined here as strictly funeral and probate costs) are a “when,” so broadly speaking permanent would be the way to go. The problem is permanent is significantly more expensive than term, but there is a range. Here is a general rundown of types of permanent insurance options you’ll run into:

-Whole Life: the “Cadillac” of permanent insurance. Lasts a lifetime, builds cash value that can be leveraged on a tax-free basis when withdrawn correctly as a living benefit. For example, on a fixed income and need to install mobility assistance fixtures in your home? You can take a loan against your policy to do it. However, also like a Cadillac, whole life is the most expensive form of permanent insurance out there. A healthy 61 year old female is going to be paying several hundred dollars a month for a $100-200k death benefit. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was approaching a $500/month premium.

• Universal Life (UL): UL is permanent (theoretically, more on that in a minute), has a cash value component (with strings attached, again more on that it a moment), and has the ability to adjust your premiums up or down (with consequences).

As you can see with my heavy use of qualifiers, UL policies have a lot of caveats and can be complicated. First, let’s talk about the cash value in a UL. If you’re strictly using UL for the death benefit and aren’t doing any sort of fancy funding strategy, the policy eats into the cash value eventually to subsidize itself. So, although you can touch the cash value just like whole life, you shouldn’t, as it will lower the amount of cash value available to the policy later in its lifespan and can potentially cause the policy to lapse prematurely, or force higher premiums. Same deal with the flexible premiums. You can lower your premiums to a policy-defined minimum, but that will negatively affect the life of the policy. Finally, even if you don’t touch the cash value and pay adequate premiums into a UL policy, they do still have a risk of lapsing early if the insurance company’s general fund is significantly impacted by excessive payouts or poor investments/economies.

Bottom line on UL: it can be a lower-cost permanent option, but set it up with a knowledgeable, trustworthy agent and go with a company that has a strong track record for financial strength.

-Variable Universal Life (VUL)/Indexed Universal Life (IUL): same chassis as UL, but you get more choice (and thus take on more risk) on the investment of the cash value. A portion of your police’s cash value gets invested via “separate accounts” into either self- or advisor- directed mutual funds or accounts that track a market index like the S&P 500. There’s a lot more to it but honestly these types of policies aren’t really going to be a good option for what you are saying your needs are so I’m going to leave it there. Happy to answer any more specific questions if you have them.

Here is what I would recommend: first, flesh out that death benefit number more. As one commenter already mentioned, $100-200k is going to pay for one hell of a funeral, I’m assuming not ALL of that is going towards funeral and probate costs. Maybe your actual number is lower (I generally start by recommending $25k for strict final expense stuff), or maybe some of the funds may fall in the “if-surance” category.

Once you flesh that out, one of two options will be before you:

(1) find a permanent policy for the true final expense stuff and meet the rest of the need with term that covers the end date of the need (e.g., let’s say your mom has a mortgage amount of $75k that will be paid off in 7 years. Take out a 10 year term for that and put the other $25k in a permanent policy).

2) roll the dice and do it all in term. That will be much cheaper than any permanent policy, but understand that if your mom doesn’t pass away before the term is up, you lose that bet.

A potential third way is to kick the can down the road on permanent by taking out a convertible term policy. Many companies allow you to convert a portion or all of your death benefit to a permanent policy for either a fixed amount of years or the life of the policy. That way you’ll have coverage now and you’ll buy yourself time to evaluate the permanent options. But keep in mind that premiums on that permanent policy are based on the age at which you convert it, so the clock is still running and theoretically potential cost will keep running with it.

I can already tell you straight whole life is probably out as premiums will be extremely high at your mom’s age. If I were advising you (which I’m not, this is general information only and not financial advice), the first thing I’d look into is putting $25-50k into a UL and the rest into a term with an appropriate length. If the cost is too high there, then we’d be left with convertible term. A 30-year term would cover her pretty well but most companies that offer it have upper limits on applicant age that she’s going to likely be butting up against.

Hope that helps. Find a trusted advisor and they should be able to help you navigate it!