Should we use whole life as an investment vehicle or use term and invest the rest?

Generally, whole life appreciates more slowly than securities, but as we have seen recently, your time horizon is very important. If you are still relatively young, invest in a nice diversified portfolio of indexed mutual funds, and change the portfolio balance as you age.

Over the long term, whole life as an investment generally falls short of the same money invested in a wise portfolio.

also, many “advisors” are insurance guys and will advise you to buy their products as investments..be wary if that’s the case with you. i tend to think of insurance not as an investment but as protection of my family and assets. if you own a home, e.g., it might make sense to purchase enough insurance to pay off your mortgage in case something happens to you or your spouse. if you have kids, caring for them through college becomes a concern. in any case, i would tend to buy term life as it gives you the most leverage for the amount of protection you require and leaves you with money to otherwise invest. i’ve never, ever, had an advisor not affiliated with an insurance company recommend whole life.

Thanks, i know our guy is a salesman and that he will make commission from a sale of the product. However, I still some level of investment potential due to the tax harbor the plan represents.

I was trained to sell whole life insurance; I don’t recommend it.

I vote term + invest

Term + investment beats whole life. It is simple math. You can do it yourself or use the investment calculators on the Motley Fool site.
As a sense check, consider: Which gives you the potential for getting more from your money. In one case you are giving money to a third party that is paying salesmen a commission to find you. In the other case you are giving a small amount to a company for a service. and investing the rest yourself. The choice is clear.
We now know from the recent melt down, insurance and investment companies are not the geniuses they tout themselves to be.