[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by Runaway Finances

In my 30 years being in the financial services business (including 17 years in the insurance business, left the business in 1996) I have never met a single person who bought Term and truly invested the difference.

I certainly have. In fact, we started investing first even before we bought insurance (because we didn't need insurance yet at that point). We set up an automatic monthly transfer into a mutual fund, gradually increased the monthly amount and later added additional investments, all the while keeping our cheap term coverage. In fact, I've replaced our term policies twice over the years as our personal savings grew and our debt diminished, reducing the amount of coverage we needed and because term rates came down so much.

And that touches on another point. I don't need whole life insurance because there will come a point when I don't need insurance at all. Once the house is paid off, my daughter is out on her own and our investments are sufficient to support my wife were I to die, the insurance can go. I've already cut our coverage twice and I expect to cut it again in the near future. The need for life insurance should gradually fade as you get older. Why buy "whole life" coverage if you won't need it for your whole life?