How much life insurance, in relation to your net worth, should you purchase?

Personal resources are limited. Thus we can’t buy all the life insurance we might want. I mean, if we could afford it, would we all buy a billion dollars worth? Well, there is the moral hazard, that when you have too much life insurance, you have an incentive to find a way to die that isn’t suicide. So you want the maximum you can get that is less than the amount where it would be enough to make you be willing to die for your family.

What is that amount? Is it equal to your net worth? Twice your net worth? An amount that would make your family live comfortably for the rest of their lives? A fixed amount? Fifty thousand? One hundred thousand? A quarter million? Half a million? A million? Two million? Less? More? Should there be a maximum amount of life insurance anyone should be allowed to purchase? If so, how much?

Personally, I think I would have to be insured for more than ten times my net worth before I would be in danger of even thinking I’d be worth enough dead to consider becoming dead. If I were depressed, that amount could come down to equal half my net worth. However, in reality, I think there would be no amount of money to make me consider wanting to be dead. You?