Life Insurance Related Topics:

There are two elements to life insurance policies: death benefits and investment. Investment-based life insurance polcies (whole life, universal life, etc.) essentially force you to save for your future by putting a certain amount of each year's payment into a savings program. Though this sounds like a good idea, it's really not, because this method of savings actually costs you as much as 6 times as much as you would pay if you just invested the money in some other kind of savings plan. So we usually don't recommend this approach to savings.

On the other hand, if you buy a term life insurance policy, you are only buying the ability for your heirs to receive a certain amount at the time of your death. This is the least expensive kind of insurance.