Whole Life Insurance vs Term Life Insurance

What’s the best? Whole Life or Term Life Insurance For Your 3o’s? Many people say term is cheap and the cost of whole life insurance doesn’t make it worth it.

But who’s right?

There’s one thing for certain, as you begin to get older life insurance becomes more important to you.

You have more things that you need to take care of if something were to happen to you.

Paying off your mortgage, kids college savings, and any debt you have can be a burden that you do not want your family to deal with if the unthinkable happens.

What are My Options?

Term Life Insurance can be a great way to protect yourself. Term insurance is a life insurance policy that is only good for a certain term, or amount of time such as 10, 20, 0r 30 years. Term life insurance does not let you borrow against the policy or generate any kind of cash value.

Term insurance is also the cheapest form of life insurance for these reasons. Term Insurance is just a great way to protect yourself during the years when you will have major expenses such as a mortgage and kids.

Example of $250,000 Term Life Insurance Policy

Here’s a quick look at the cost of 30 year term policy for a 30 year old. It breaks down to be $21 a month.

Term is Cheap

Whole Life Insurance

As you get older the need for a more permanent life insurance plan seems more important. A more permanent policy can help pay for your final expenses past the life of a term policy. For those that can afford it, Whole Life Insurance is a great way to protect yourself and have cash values that grow every year.

A Little Bit More About Whole Life.

A whole life policy is a policy that last till age 100. A whole life policy also generates a cash value. This same cash value is the basis by which the insurance company will loan to the policy owner. The loan is collateralized by the cash value. The insurance company will not lend the policy owner more than the total cash value. Through the policy loan provision, a policy holder can access the cash value without incurring taxes.

This is because policy loans are treated as debt, which is not a taxable distribution. The Insurance company does however charge interest on the outstanding policy loan but do not require payments to be made. However, an outstanding policy loan will reduce the overall available cash value and if death were to occur with an outstanding policy loan, the loan would be paid back via the death benefit proceeds.

Here is an example of a $250,000 Whole Life Policy

Here’s a quote I ran on a 30 year-old with the same coverage. As you can see it comes to be considerably more. On a monthly basis, it comes to be $286.66. In case you were curious, which I’m sure you are, that’s $265.66 more premium dollars per month of a whole life policy vs. a term policy.

Cost of Whole Life is Much More

To give you an accurate picture on the various costs of whole life insurance premiums, I also ran quotes for males and females and different ages seen below.

Cost of Whole Life Insurance for Males and Females

Cost of Whole Life Insurance Vs. Term Life Males and Females, 20, 30, and 40 years-old

Does the Cost of Whole Life Insurance Make it Worth It?

While I’m sure there are situations where whole life insurance makes sense, it’s hard for me to see that for a 30 year old.

Right now I’m sticking with my term policies although I am considering a indexed policy as another investment option. Stay tuned for that.

This article: Whole Life Insurance vs Term Life Insurance is written by Jeff Rose CFP on his blog about