Is Whole Life Insurance A Good Investment?

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
30,160
3,300
126

my knee jerk reaction is NO!
term life is better.

Then the forbes article said:
if you need life insurance mainly to provide a death benefit and nothing else, whole life insurance is not a good use of money. Universal life insurance can generally provide a death benefit at a lower cost.

WTF?
 

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
25,069
3,416
126
Whole life insurance is simply a mediocre life insurance combined with a mediocre investment plan. If you value convenience over everything, cost isn't a concern, and you can actually stick to the payments for life then whole life insurance is for you.

For the rest of us, it is better to split the two. Buy a good life insurance (if you need one) and then pick a good investment plan. Separating the two lets us get the best of both worlds and customize each of them to our specific needs.

Universal life insurance is one option if we split whole life insurance into its two parts. Term life insurance is the other option.
 

Torn Mind

Lifer
Nov 25, 2012
11,645
2,654
136
Life insurance is betting against your own longevity.

So, people with a history of long life can safely not bother with it.

It's better called death insurance but that would scare people away. It's about benefits on death and more darkly, about inducing people into killing another to get the policy. And the killing part is, in the terms of another, "old school", since it was turned into a talkie film called "Double Indemnity", which starred Barbara Stanwyck.