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Thoughts on Whole Life Insurance as an alternative to banking?

Anything related to investing, including crypto

tonyf7

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I've had term life insurance for almost 20 years now. It covers my wife and kids in the event of the inevitable. But the term is almost up and I met with a new insurance agent today. He really tried pushing Universal Life Insurance on me, which really confused me. So I came home and started researching. Seems Universal Life is a shit product. But then I came across strategies for using Whole Life Insurance as a great alternative to a savings account.

Your family gets a death benefit in case you croak, you earn at least 4-5% on your money and you can "borrow" that money anytime you want, both tax free and with no penalties. You "pay back" the loan at the same rate you're earning on your cash value so it's basically a wash (since you're borrowing money from the insurance company and not directly from your cash value). Seems that at the end of the term you can cash out all your dough free on any tax. Plus that money is untouchable. No lawsuits, liens, bankruptcies or ex wives can get to it.

I really like the liquidity of it. If I want to grab some money to grow my business or for a downpayment on a house, I can, just like I would from a regular savings account. I'm just earning 5% instead of 0.5% and my family get a million dollars if a piano falls on my head. I don't recall @MJ DeMarco mentioning this kind of product as one of his investment vehicles in Unscripted but I'd be curious to know his thoughts on it as well as everyone else's.

Thank you for your time.
 
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my family get a million dollars if a piano falls on my head. I don't recall @MJ DeMarco mentioning this kind of product as one of his investment vehicles in Unscripted but I'd be curious to know his thoughts on it as well as everyone else's.

I don't know anything about life insurance, but I am very much interested in this piano business of yours. Maybe we can work something out.
 

Kevin88660

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I've had term life insurance for almost 20 years now. It covers my wife and kids in the event of the inevitable. But the term is almost up and I met with a new insurance agent today. He really tried pushing Universal Life Insurance on me, which really confused me. So I came home and started researching. Seems Universal Life is a shit product. But then I came across strategies for using Whole Life Insurance as a great alternative to a savings account.

Your family gets a death benefit in case you croak, you earn at least 4-5% on your money and you can "borrow" that money anytime you want, both tax free and with no penalties. You "pay back" the loan at the same rate you're earning on your cash value so it's basically a wash (since you're borrowing money from the insurance company and not directly from your cash value). Seems that at the end of the term you can cash out all your dough free on any tax. Plus that money is untouchable. No lawsuits, liens, bankruptcies or ex wives can get to it.

I really like the liquidity of it. If I want to grab some money to grow my business or for a downpayment on a house, I can, just like I would from a regular savings account. I'm just earning 5% instead of 0.5% and my family get a million dollars if a piano falls on my head. I don't recall @MJ DeMarco mentioning this kind of product as one of his investment vehicles in Unscripted but I'd be curious to know his thoughts on it as well as everyone else's.

Thank you for your time.
I am a financial adviser based in Singapore. So I will discuss in the context of Singapore environment. I hope I can offer you more points to consider that you can do more research to form an informed opinion.

Universal Life Insurance generally has high distribution cost (more commission for the sales force and hence less return for you). I generally recommend customers to look at other whole life insurance products if they are into whole life insurance.

Yes you can borrow money from it. But at 5.5percent interest here in Singapore, it is not attractive for a secured loan. You get less than 2.5percent from the bank by pledging your property.

Yes it has tax advantages in U.S. but I would not elaborate further because in Singapore there is no inheritance tax or capital gain tax on investment.

Did your agent tell you a 4-5 percent return? Honestly that’s too high. It is more like the yield on death benefit rather than surrender value. In the benefit illustration “investment return” is the yield for the insurance company not for you. Look for term “yield to maturity” printed in black and white. It will say at age 70, the yield to maturity is xx %. Do a internal rate of calculation if unsure.

When picking a whole life insurance make sure you ask yourself are you looking at wealth accumulation or protection. Typically the high protection products have slower cash value accumulation. Low protection value products have cash value that gets accumulated quickly.

I recommendation has always been this. Do not look for insurance as saving or liquidity. Go for whole life insurance for coverage and legacy planning (death benefit at natural death). If you want liquidity just have cash in bank. If you want saving buy a pure saving (endowment/investment) product. It is much easier for planning. You do not have to worry about liquidating your saving plan but unnecessarily reducing your coverage.
 

tonyf7

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I recommendation has always been this. Do not look for insurance as saving or liquidity. Go for whole life insurance for coverage and legacy planning (death benefit at natural death).

If the goal is just the death benefit and legacy planning, wouldn't a term life policy be better and cheaper? You can get way more death benefit for way less than a whole life policy. Also, is it true that at the end of a whole life policy, you can't get both your death benefit AND your cash value? That means thst when you die, the hand over the death benefit but all the "savings" you put into the cash vslue portion they get to keep. (Learned that from Dave Ramsey just today, Lol). If that's the case, then f*** that sh**!!! I'll find another place to park my money!
 
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Kevin88660

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If the goal is just the death benefit and legacy planning, wouldn't a term life policy be better and cheaper? You can get way more death benefit for way less than a whole life policy. Also, is it true that at the end of a whole life policy, you can't get both your death benefit AND your cash value? That means thst when you die, the hand over the death benefit but all the "savings" you put into the cash vslue portion they get to keep. (Learned that from Dave Ramsey just today, Lol). If that's the case, then f*** that sh**!!! I'll find another place to park my money!
Yes you cannot get FULL cash benefit and death value. Most policies allow you to withdraw the accumulated bonus portion without diminishing the death benefit.

Term plan works best when you know the time horizon exactly. For example you know when your child is going to graduate from university and be independent. You just don't know when you are going to die. You buy a term plan until you are age 80? What if you live till 81? At 80 do you have to force yourself to commit suicide if you are not dying?

Low cash value whole life plan works better in legacy planning because you do not have to time your death. It’s basically pay me when I die. If you do the math and compare buying a term plan until 100 years old versus a whole life plan the whole life plan is more economical.

Do not get sucked into the Guru hype and ignore the details. When they say buy term only they usually assume

1) You do not want to use insurance to do legacy planning
2) You will do better in investment versus whole life insurance cash value growth.
-I agree if you have time to manage and the skill to do it. That’s why i advocate low cash value high protection whole life plan. But people like Dave Ramsey give misleading bullshit like an expected 12 percent return their forecast for equity growth as a reason why you should spend as little money as possible on insurance.

-Study shows that even though equity growth has been stellar for the past 30 years. People who did the buy term and invest the rest did worse than whole life insurance buyers. It is because they spent the money on consumption and didn't invest properly. So it goes back to the previous point about having the discipline.

You will never hear about Dave Ramsey criticizing mutual fund fee and promote etf as an investment. Why? I leave that for you to research if you are interested.
 

tonyf7

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Don't Whole Life policies have fees as well? Ramsey claims the first 2-3 years are all fees. Either way, I'm not sure I like the idea of paying into an account that I'll never get my money back on.

Could I buy term and rewrite the policy every 5 years to extend it an additional 5 years? Would still be cheaper than whole life premiums 20 years from now I'd assume.

And after fees from the whole life policy, wouldn't my rate of return on the cash value be lower? Probably not the 4-5 percent they advertise. Wouldn't it be about the same as putting my cash in a 2.5% online savings account?

So much information to process!! :eek:
 

MJ DeMarco

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If I want to grab some money to grow my business or for a downpayment on a house, I can, just like I would from a regular savings account. I'm just earning 5% instead of 0.5% and my family get a million dollars if a piano falls on my head. I don't recall @MJ DeMarco mentioning this kind of product as one of his investment vehicles in Unscripted but I'd be curious to know his thoughts on it as well as everyone else's.

My life insurance is actual wealth left to heirs through a trust.

I don't use life insurance, although I think it is a good idea for a family just getting started. If you have generational wealth, then I don't think it's necessary as proper estate planning should take care of life tragedies.
 
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tonyf7

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My life insurance is actual wealth left to heirs through a trust.

I don't use life insurance, although I think it is a good idea for a family just getting started. If you have generational wealth, then I don't think it's necessary as proper estate planning should take care of life tragedies.

So you don't see it as a vehicle for legacy planning, correct? Because that is how whole life policies seem to be marketed.

Would you say cheap term life insurance is the way to go?
 

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Would you say cheap term life insurance is the way to go?

IMO, yes, if i was young and with a family to provide for.
 

tonyf7

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That said, I've played with the math, and for those who are reasonably smart investors, the returns on whole life aren't going to match what you'd get on outside investments. The big reason being the hefty fees against funds going into the policy (commissions are exorbitant).

Yes, the fees seem cray cray, but aside from that, I just can't wrap my head around why I would pay money into an account that earns 4% interest, but that I will never truly own. Because when I die, my wife will get the death benefit, but what happens to all that money in the cash value? If I buy term and have 500k in a regular savings, I at least know my wife amd kids will get the death benefit plus the 500k in our savings account. But if that 500k was in a cash value policy, where does it go? In the insurance company's pocket? If so, that doesn't make sense to me. At all. Why would anyone literally give away their money?

Am I thinking about this correctly or am I missing something?

No matter what interest you pay me on my cash value, my family will never see that money after I'm buried six feet under.

And let's say I piss away half that 500k in a savings account due to inflation and my wife only ends up with 250k worth of buying power in 20 years, that STILL beats not getting a penny of that money back from the insurance company when I die.

How can this be seen as a sound strategy?

I would really need someone to hold me by the hand and baby step my a$$ through each number in order for this to make sense to me.
 
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Kevin88660

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Don't Whole Life policies have fees as well? Ramsey claims the first 2-3 years are all fees. Either way, I'm not sure I like the idea of paying into an account that I'll never get my money back on.

Could I buy term and rewrite the policy every 5 years to extend it an additional 5 years? Would still be cheaper than whole life premiums 20 years from now I'd assume.

And after fees from the whole life policy, wouldn't my rate of return on the cash value be lower? Probably not the 4-5 percent they advertise. Wouldn't it be about the same as putting my cash in a 2.5% online savings account?

So much information to process!! :eek:
-Yes there are cost and charged embedded inside the product. Look at total expense ratio in the benefit illustration.

-If you buy term and renew there will be new underwriting for the new application. As you grow older when illness catch on there will be a time when you are no longer accepted or the company will charge you extra loading for the same coverage due to health condition.

-If you are looking for insurance products for saving. I recommend endowment policy. They have high cash value with minimal protection value. Whether its suitable for you depends on what you want. Are you looking for liquidity? Insurance products are long term commitment and they are very bad in liquidity. If you are looking for investment safety then it is suitable. They usually have a guaranteed surrender value upon maturity which is higher than the amount invested.
 

Kevin88660

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I'm not going to spend a lot of time writing out my thoughts, as there are a lot of people who think whole life insurance is the greatest thing since the wheel. And they'll argue in favor of whole life insurance (and the "infinite banking" idea) until they're blue in the face.

That said, I've played with the math, and for those who are reasonably smart investors, the returns on whole life aren't going to match what you'd get on outside investments. The big reason being the hefty fees against funds going into the policy (commissions are exorbitant).

I'll just leave it at that and let any whole life proponents tell me that I just don't have enough information... :)



End of what term?
Depends on the expertise and skill of the investor.

If someone has time and skill to do his own investment and trading just open an IB brokerage account.

If someone is knowledge about investment and prefer low-cost buy and hold strategy just buy vanguard product.

There is a larger segment of population who prefer safe and unsophisticated way of investment. They will go for capital guaranteed life insurance products such as endowment plans. Lots of them had bad experience getting burnt by penny stocks and they quickly swing their future investment to the safe side.
 

Kevin88660

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I sort of understand the argument that whole life policies are a benefit for investors, giving the ability to borrow against the cash value of the policy as a manner of investment arbitrage. (I still agree that the numbers work, but I get the argument.)

But, from the standpoint of an "unsophisticated" (your term) person, it seems clear to me that the fees incurred with the typical whole life policy would far outweigh any benefits that unsophisticated person could derive from the policy. Given time value of money, these policies would need to return at least 4-5% long-term just to cover the upfront commission and the loss to inflation. And it's very unlikely that these policies can return 4-5% long-term.

For the unsophisticated person, a cheap term policy with the additional capital going into diversified stock/bond funds would seem like a superior financial option (given long-term returns of those funds), plus it's much simpler to understand.
If you compare the cost of buying an endowment policy versus doing your own investment, the key thing is the total expense ratio being charged by the endowment product. Good products have a total expense ratio below one percent.

When you buy an endowment product with a policy term of ten years for example, what you really have done is giving your money to to an insurance company. The insurance company then outsource the investment to an external manager to invest in 30 percent equity and 70 percent bond globally. The insurance company promises that they will guarantee you the capital (no loss after then years). If the investment made an annual rate of 5 percent for example, what you will get is 4.2 percent if the total expense ratio is 0.8 percent.

So assuming you invest in the same things for yourself through a broker, (30 percent equity 70 percent bond), it will cost you your own time to do the research and trading changes as you see fit along the ten years. The capital is never guaranteed. That is the downside of investing by yourself.

The good thing about the DIY approach is you save on the cost- charges paid to the insurance company. But keep in the mind that small brokerage fee does exist also (depending on how often you make adjustment to your portfolio). The real difference is Liquidity. Your capital is not tied up for ten years. You can sell anytime as fast as a mouse click if you do it by yourself.

My experience is that the biggest drawback in insurance company product is liquidity not the cost. In Singapore where I work, there are many insurance companies competing for the same pool of customers and the cost structure of the products are fairly competitive.
 

Kevin88660

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The argument about using cash value as a loan is never attractive here in Singapore. Most people who look into that option are business owners and most of them have private properties that can be pledged to the bank and get a much lower interest rate. It is like 2.5% versus 5.5%.
 
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Kevin88660

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On the term versus whole life argument, my view is it doesn't really matter as long as you keep your protection and saving into separate products.

Protection- You can buy term until 65 years old for instance (retirement age). You can also choose a whole life that pay you when you die. This is for customer who want to leave a bit of money for the children using insurance. Choose the whole life plan that have negligible cash value so that they have high protection (death benefit).

Investment- Invest in whatever you want. You can invest in a pure saving/investment products through an insurance company or do it yourself (buy mutual fund and etf through a broker).

The problem arises when some people want to address protection and investment using one product such as whole life insurance. They seek protection from the product and meanwhile uses it as a saving tool for the future. So when they need the money they have to terminate the plan. When they terminate the plan the protection is gone. It creates difficulty in planning.

I do not believe that certain products types by design are inherently superior. If you buy a term plan until 65 versus a whole life plan (minimal cash value) of course the term plan is cheaper because the whole life plan Guarantees a payout and basically it is like you buying a term plan into age infinity.

When it comes to financial products the devils are in the details. Products with high distribution cost and expense ratio are universally bad regardless of how they are being branded. It just means that too much of your money will being used to pay for administration, managers fee and sales force commission.
 

tonyf7

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When it comes to financial products the devils are in the details. Products with high distribution cost and expense ratio are universally bad regardless of how they are being branded. It just means that too much of your money will being used to pay for administration, managers fee and sales force commission.

This is exactly what I'm figuring out about whole life insurance as I do more research. This article does a great job of explaining it in terms I can understand.

 
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Kevin88660

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This is exactly what I'm figuring out about whole life insurance as I do more research. This article does a great job of explaining it in terms I can understand.

Don't get too influenced by online opinion. Listen to all but make your own judgement.

Financial products are essentially contracts. This is no such thing as “good category of products” and “bad category of products”.

Whole life insurance as saving was popular before the 80s because equity market was bad. Stock market was dead water. It was only after the bull market rally for the past 30-40 years that we began to hear “buy term and invest the rest”. But keep in the mind that it was based on a projection of high economic growth, low inflation since the 80s-the golden era of globalization.
 
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I have priced both ways and had salesmen tell me why Term is a waste of money and why Term is awesome and Whole Life is a rip off. Honestly I think both suck as most people pay into them for years and then either stop paying and let them lapse wasting all the money or redo into a new policy and again wasted all that time and money. I also know a lot of people get suckered into policies with massive loopholes that they aren't aware of and families get screwed in the end.

Real life example of a bad policy and people getting screwed. My wife lost her grandfather who on his deathbed told us where his policy information was and that noone in the family would ever have to worry about money again. When we went through thousands of stacks of papers (please for the love of god put your policy somewhere that it can be found!!!) I finally found his $1M life insurance policy. I didn't even want to share it with them at that point as it was a $1M policy, but only if he was killed in a public transportation accident! He got $5k if he was killed in a normal auto accident, and $3k for natural death. He had paid $20 a month for 25 years for this policy thinking it was a $1M policy and in the end got $3k. They were very deceptive in marketing it because at the top it was big and boldly written that it was a $1,000,000 policy with a tiny little*. He paid $6k to recoup $3k....

That said I have a wife, daughter, and another daughter due in 5 weeks so I have $1M in term life just as a security blanket for them as I do not have that "generational wealth" yet.
 

Kevin88660

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I have priced both ways and had salesmen tell me why Term is a waste of money and why Term is awesome and Whole Life is a rip off. Honestly I think both suck as most people pay into them for years and then either stop paying and let them lapse wasting all the money or redo into a new policy and again wasted all that time and money. I also know a lot of people get suckered into policies with massive loopholes that they aren't aware of and families get screwed in the end.

Real life example of a bad policy and people getting screwed. My wife lost her grandfather who on his deathbed told us where his policy information was and that noone in the family would ever have to worry about money again. When we went through thousands of stacks of papers (please for the love of god put your policy somewhere that it can be found!!!) I finally found his $1M life insurance policy. I didn't even want to share it with them at that point as it was a $1M policy, but only if he was killed in a public transportation accident! He got $5k if he was killed in a normal auto accident, and $3k for natural death. He had paid $20 a month for 25 years for this policy thinking it was a $1M policy and in the end got $3k. They were very deceptive in marketing it because at the top it was big and boldly written that it was a $1,000,000 policy with a tiny little*. He paid $6k to recoup $3k....

That said I have a wife, daughter, and another daughter due in 5 weeks so I have $1M in term life just as a security blanket for them as I do not have that "generational wealth" yet.
Your wife’s grandpa bought an accident plan. No way that a one million life insurance can be so cheap. Lol.

Most insurance companies have online access now. Keeping paper record is no longer necessary.
 

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I hear this type of example a lot. And if whole life policies were consistently paying ANYWHERE NEAR 4.2%, I'd agree with you.

But, the truth is, most policies only guarantee 1.5% and the average returns are probably in the 3.0% range, which means they probably just barely beat inflation long-term. But, when you factor in the commissions/fees, you're losing money long-term.
The benefit illustration will publish the average historical return in the past.

For my company the past ten year average was 4.81 percent for investment return. Based on that a ten years plan yield for customer will be around 3.3-3.4 percent. But a 25 years commitment will generate 4 percent yield for the client.
 
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Kevin88660

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If you know how to do your investment and have the time to do so, then sure Scott you should be doing it on your own to save cost.
 

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As long as we're picking arbitrary timelines, let's pick one that doesn't just cover a period of pure economic expansion...

How about your past 13 year average?
@JScott If I'm remembering correctly, I think I read that you deal in real estate quite a lot?

What do you think about the housing market? Think we're due for a correction?

I own a property in Washington D.C. that is just now getting back to the value it was at before the 2008 crash and I'm thinking of selling before another crash. Would hate to wait another decade to recover from a downturn. The neighborhood it's in is about to start booming with tons of development so there's definitely room for more growth. But I'm just not so confident that this market will be able to stay so generous for another year or two.
 

tonyf7

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As long as we're picking arbitrary timelines, let's pick one that doesn't just cover a period of pure economic expansion...

How about your past 13 year average?
@JScott If I'm remembering correctly, I think I read that you deal in real estate quite a lot?

What do you think about the housing market? Think we're due for a correction?

I own a property in Washington D.C. that is just now getting back to the value it was at before the 2008 crash and I'm thinking of selling before another crash. Would hate to wait another decade to recover from a downturn. The neighborhood it's in is about to start booming with tons of development so there's definitely room for more growth. But I'm just not so confident that this market will be able to stay so generous for another year or two.
 
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tonyf7

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Yes, I do a good bit of real estate investing. But, my thoughts on the real estate market have more to do with the broader economy than what we might see with real estate indicators. Specifically, I think the real estate market is relatively healthy if you were to look at it in a vacuum.

But, you can't really look at real estate in a vacuum. Real estate values will be impacted by other economic factors, like: wage growth, unemployment, interest rates, inflation, etc. And for a whole lot of reasons, I think the broader economy is in for a correction in the near future.

First, simply from a timing standpoint -- this is the longest economic expansion in history, and if you look at historical timelines, we are about 5 years past the peak of the distribution curve for length of economic expansions.

Second, from a purely qualitative standpoint, it "feels" like we're at the top of the market. Irrational exuberance in several industries (including housing) and a lot of profit taking from seasoned investors.

Third, the economic data doesn't look good. Sure, things like the stock marketing and unemployment are strong, but those things are almost always strong right before a recession. More importantly, if you look at things like the yield curve (now inverted for three months, which has never happened without a recession following within 12 months), out-of-whack GDP to equities ratios (see "The Buffett Indicator" for more info), stagnating wage growth, increased inflation, manufacturing output in recession territory, consumer debt at an historical high, corporate debt at an historical high, increasing real estate inventory, global economic slowdown, increasing federal deficits, and a host of other less obvious indicators (like auto sales slowing, retail sales slowing, etc), it seems obvious to me that we've hit the top of the market, and have been bumping along the top for about a year now.

I'm not so arrogant that I think I can predict *when* the downturn will start, but I'm arrogant enough that I'm willing to predict that this economic expansion has ended, and from here, we will see stagnation until the downturn starts. Personally, I've sold off much of my real estate holdings over the past year, and am sitting on a lot of cash. The investing that I am doing is very conservative and I'm mostly making investments that are more "recession resistant" than in the past.

All that said, I've been saying this for over a year now...so take it for what it's worth... :)
Great insights! I think we're going to sell it and pay off all our debt (including the mortgage of the home we currently live in). It has been a golden goose for us for over a decade now. We've financed two cars with it, got some cash out of it and recently rolled in some student loans into it. I think it's time got for to lay its final egg for us by making is 100% debt free. I feel so thankful to have had it.
 

Rabby

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If the goal is just the death benefit and legacy planning, wouldn't a term life policy be better and cheaper? You can get way more death benefit for way less than a whole life policy. Also, is it true that at the end of a whole life policy, you can't get both your death benefit AND your cash value? That means thst when you die, the hand over the death benefit but all the "savings" you put into the cash vslue portion they get to keep. (Learned that from Dave Ramsey just today, Lol). If that's the case, then f*** that sh**!!! I'll find another place to park my money!

If that bothers you, buy a return of premium rider. You'll get all the premium you paid back, plus the death benefit, if you die within a period of time.

The extra "cost" is your own money. You're saving money as part of your death benefit. Whole life costs less if you're buying it for... well, your whole life. Early on, more of what you're paying is premium for the term life part of the policy. Later on, more of what you're paying is just your own money going into a sheltered account.
 
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Rabby

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Because when I die, my wife will get the death benefit, but what happens to all that money in the cash value? If I buy term and have 500k in a regular savings, I at least know my wife and kids will get the death benefit plus the 500k in our savings account. But if that 500k was in a cash value policy, where does it go? In the insurance company's pocket? If so, that doesn't make sense to me. At all. Why would anyone literally give away their money?

Am I thinking about this correctly or am I missing something?

Just want to re-iterate this because people often don't understand it. The cash value portion of whole life is you saving money to pay part of the death benefit.

You're not losing the money. You're putting it in an account to fund the death benefit, or getting it back if you cash out early or die late.
  • Think of it as a term life policy with the rate locked in to age 100 or 120.
  • Add a savings account to that.
  • As the savings account grows, it replaces the need for the term life part.
  • Amortize the term premium and the savings deposits to <age> so that the monthly payment is level.
If you bought the same amount of insurance in term life, for the same period of time (eg: from age 30-80), it would cost you more by the end. Term is not cheap anymore once you're old. That might or might not be Ok with you.

Maybe you only need life insurance for another 5 years, in your opinion. In that case, whole life is not the tool. Both types of insurance are reasonable options for someone, depending on what they're trying to do.
 
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I've looked into whole life insurance.
And it does sound like a good investment / insurance policy.

I've heard that you can pay a 1 big lump sum like $500k or $1 mil. and then have it grow at around 3% per year, and take out a loan against the policy - interest free - without hurting the compounding effect.

I've not heard that you need to pay $5k-7k every year in order to keep it active.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mzHSV-M_FQ

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-UKC2qA2hQ

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37Sdb7WltXA


I suggest you speak with some experts mate.
 

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Single premium policies requires you to pay a lump sum at start and no further premium payment is required.

Regular premium policies require constant payment until the premium term is over.

It depends on the product specification.
 

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