Whole life - crap?

[jumangibuttercu]

What is the name of your state? Michigan

Iv'e recently heard a lot of arguments that it makes no sense to have whole life insurance. The main reason is it's expensive. By this I mean you could get term life for a lot less, invest the difference in cost, and come out way ahead. I have to say, this makes sense to me. My question is under what circumstances does whole life have a place?

Thanks

 

[cbg]

It depends entirely on what your goal is for the insurance to do. If buying term and investing elsewhere works for you, fine. But that doesn't mean that whole life is useless for everyone.

 

[anteater]

Duh.... it makes sense if your need for guaranteed coverage is for your whole life.

Look, the insurance industry has spent a whole lot of money buying tax breaks for their products and a lot more money employing ingenious folks to design products to take advantage of those tax breaks. If that is what you need, buy it.

 

[Betty]

Whole life ins. makes sense for a lot of people. Each person's ins. needs are different. It helps to discuss them with an ins. agt. re amt. of coverage, plan of ins., cost, etc. Whole life builds a cash value which can be taken out as a pol. loan or payable to owner if policy surrendered or lapsed. Also, if the policy is continued in force w/o a policy loan, the full face amt. will be payable at the death of the insured. If you believe buying term & investing the difference in cost, you'll come out ahead - then that is your choice.