I am motivated to ditto Jeff's comments since I follow the same rule. Term is the best option if you never have a life policty to start with. But after reading my 2 course for CFP cert(currently working on), whole has lot of advantages which many people are taking advantage. It shouldn't used as a sole investment vehicle. Here are few things about whole life,
For 5-7 years, all your premium payment of whole insurance goes to agent commission. If you terminate the policy during this period, you don't get back anything. You need to have a commitement to do whole life for 25-30 years to make it real worth it. Also there are different riders which complicates the whole life policy. So it is true whole life is not a good choice for both life insurance and investment but it is a good choice if you run out of other choices. There is also variable life insurance which combines whole life and self portfolio management to make another insurance cum investment vehicle. It was popular 2 years ago when stock where at high not anymore..
So if you don't have insurance at all, first risk management step is to get Term life to cover your bases next think about other options.
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