The life insurance at your job belongs to the job. Quit, get laid off, retire, or drop below the hours the plan requires, and the coverage ends, usually at the end of that month. What a lot of people never find out is that the group policy has a conversion privilege in it. That means a right to trade the group coverage for your own policy, and it runs out about 31 days after your coverage ends.
Inside that window you can convert to an individual permanent policy with no evidence of insurability. Evidence of insurability means proof that you're healthy enough to be insured, so no evidence means no exam, no questionnaire, and no underwriting. The carrier has to issue it. You have that right whether you're in perfect health or whether you got a diagnosis last March, and for the second group it's the only door still open.
There's usually a second option called portability. Portability lets you keep the group term coverage itself instead of trading it for a permanent policy. It normally costs less per month, and it's still term insurance, so it comes with its own end date. Conversion costs more and gets you a permanent policy that builds cash value and doesn't expire. Which one fits depends on your health and what you're trying to do. Both of them die on the same 31-day clock.
One detail about those 31 days. If you die during them, before you've applied or paid a dime, most group policies still pay the amount you could have converted. So the window is coverage, and not just an option to buy coverage. It's cold comfort and it's a real provision, and it's why the paperwork asks for the exact date your job ended.
The reason people miss the window is procedural. HR hands you a COBRA packet about health insurance, because COBRA is required by federal law and everybody has heard the word. The life insurance notice is a separate document. It often gets mailed by the insurance company rather than the employer, and it lands in the same pile as your 401(k) rollover paperwork, during the month you're least likely to read anything. Then the window closes, and it doesn't reopen.
So put it on the list the day you give notice. Call HR and ask for four things: the name of the group life carrier, the policy number, your coverage amount, and the conversion and portability forms. Then call the carrier yourself and get the deadline date confirmed in writing. The clock runs from the date your coverage ended, not from your last day at a desk.
If you're healthy, you're often better off skipping both and buying your own term policy. Individual term for a healthy 40-year-old is usually cheaper per dollar than converted group coverage, and it's yours no matter where you work next. Get that policy approved and in force before you let the conversion window lapse, though, and not the other way around. What it costs is in what term life insurance actually costs.
If you're not healthy, convert. The premium on a converted policy looks like a bad deal right up until you remember the alternative is getting turned down everywhere else. What you'd otherwise be facing is in what the life insurance exam actually involves, and the broader case against leaning on work coverage is in the life insurance you get through work is a perk, not a plan.