Participating whole life insurance can be an excellent saving vehicle for long term conservative savers or as a conservative part of a person’s retirement portfolio. And along those same lines of thinking, can be a disciplined monthly savings approach similar to dollar cost averaging.
Agent Owner, Gilmore Insurance Services, Marysville, Washington State
Is whole life ever a good idea? Absolutely, for those who understand it's application and use, it makes great sense. For those who always want to compare it to a stock mutual fund that never ever does anything but go up, well, it shows that they really don't have a good understanding of how RISK applies to financial choices.
I own whole life for many years now. It has served me well, done what I have expected it to do and even better it has never gone backwards like my qualified plan investments have or my real estate investments have. Whole life insurance is a solidly boring financial product that serves a good purpose in a portfolio. It is part of a portfolio, a boring part, but if you've been around long enough and put money in different places, you'll understand the need to have something like whole life. Some choices shouldn't keep you up at night.
Insurance Adviser - Broker, SC Insurance Services, Oahu, Hawaii
First you need to understand that there are a number of variations on Permanent or Whole Life Insurance. Universal, Indexed Universal, Variable Universal, and straight Whole Life are all "Permanent Life" insurance. That said, I would answer your question by saying that Whole Life Insurance is Always a good idea! From there it needs to be determined what you range of objectives are to determine which type will be best for you. As mentioned above Whole Life is Cash Value insurance that grows cash value tax free at a minimum guaranteed rate. The exceptions are the variable and universal varieties, which are subject to stock market variations and cost increases.
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I own whole life for many years now. It has served me well, done what I have expected it to do and even better it has never gone backwards like my qualified plan investments have or my real estate investments have. Whole life insurance is a solidly boring financial product that serves a good purpose in a portfolio. It is part of a portfolio, a boring part, but if you've been around long enough and put money in different places, you'll understand the need to have something like whole life. Some choices shouldn't keep you up at night.