Golfpro, I love whole life insurance and its a really great product when used appropriately.  Also, Guardian is an excellent company.

However, there are a few things in your post that give you away as either a new guy in insurance or someone who is not that knowledgeable.

The 10 year premium offset using dividends is not even in the ballpark.  Based upon current dividend scales, you are looking at closer to 20 years.

Also, the cash does not grow at a minimum of 4% a year.  4% is the minumum dividend scale that they use.  This is not the same thing!  If the cash grew at 4%, why does the policy have very little to no cash value in the beginning.

Babbling Looney, you can choose to sell or not sell whole life, but your reasoning is flawed.  You are basing a long term purchase on short term rates.  It makes no sense.  

BankFC, When doing a whole life vs. buy term and invest the difference comparison, it is only a fair comparison if the "difference" that is being invested is invested into something with the same risk as the whole life insurance.   Money that would otherwise be in equities doesn't belong in whole life insurance.

The purpose of whole life insurance needs to be to leave money behind at death regardless of when death occurs.

Anon,

You're right about Golfpro being a new guy.  He may be a "golf pro" (which in reality means he works for $6/hr in the pro shop at the local muni course ) but he needs to learn not to regurgatate all the BS every company feeds him and form an opinion of his own based on facts.

However, your statement about my post ASSUMES (check my post, no specific reference) I was referring to investing in equities. 

You know what they say about assuming...

Isn't that the purpose of all "permanent" life insurance? 

If you can accomplish it by have lower premiums the client is more likely to actually purchase the product.  Life insurance does no good if the client a.) can't fit the premiums into their budget and won't purchase the product in the first place b) comes to a point where they can no longer afford the premiums and let the policy lapse or surrender of c) short sightly buys term insurance when they really needed permanent insurance.

The ordinary retail client really doesn't care about all the internal workings of the contract. They want premiums they can afford or feel comfortable with and they want the insurance to be there when they need it (death).  Most "retail" not commercial clients don't want a policy to endow and are only mildly interested in cash build up and loan provisions.

Life insurance and long term care products are much much harder to sell than investments. People don't want to admit to their own mortality or accept the idea of debilitating age.  So if we can't get them to get the perfect product, whether that is Whole Life or UL or VUL, we should at least get them to do something.

BankFC, you are correct that I assumed that you were talking about investing in equities.  I apologize for making the assumption.  The reason that I made this assumption is there is no way that buy term and invest the difference in a conservative investment comes out better than whole life.  (This assumes a long time period.)

BTID is definitely superior short term.  Long term (and of course this depends on the assumptions used) the cash value will roughly equal the side fund.  The difference is the insurance.

People seem to not realize that over a long periods of time, term insurance costs more out of pocket than permanent coverage.   This is because dividends can be used to pay for premiums.  In fact, if dividends are used from the very beginning to offset premiums, the death benefit will never grow (like term insurance), but eventually, the insured will get more back from the insurance company than they ever paid in.  In other words, the net cost of the insurance is actually significantly less than 0$.

I'm not advocating for one type of insurance or the other.  It depends on the situation.  My clientelle consists of about 30% who should only own term insurance, 10% who should only own whole life, and 60% who should own both. 

Universal life is nothing more than fancy term insurance.  It does have a place, but should not be confused with whole life.

Are there any resources y’all can recommend-books, journals, or websites-where I can learn some unbiased accurate information about this stuff?

"Life Insurance in a Nutshell" by Howard Wight

Everytime that I read something by someone who was never an insurance professional, the article/book/website always has inaccuracies.  

[quote=baylorjoyce1]

GOLFPRO,

congrats on throwing in depth planning terms like "understands creative strategies regarding estate planning, legacy planning, tax planning, pension maximization, and charitable giving". 

i dont know if anyone on this board can grasp those concepts. please do not come on here acting like nobody understands insurance.  i can only wish for the day when i learn to plug in only paying for 10 years into an insurance policy.  maybe if we can all learn to do that we can all get to your competency level. 

i bet i could kick you a$$ at golf and insurance illustrations, and neither of those statements are a joke. 

[/quote]

I believe that this forum is for information sharing and, maybe, some education and the discussions put forth by GolfPro and others are well appreciated.  However, it seems to me that some people like Baylorjoyce1 are ruining it by personally attacking the writers and assuming that these writers simply are showing off.  Worse yet, these people even attempt to engage others in needless arguments ("i bet i could kick you a$$ at golf and insurance illustrations, and neither of those statements are a joke.") while saying, really, nothing worthwhile.

I am not old but learn from the old school.  I suggest that unless they have something constructive that they can contribute to the forum, people like Baylorjoyce1 should leave, or at least refrain from commenting on, the forum so that everyone can benefit from these discussions.  Also, they should learn to write using proper English and grammar.

Chi-

Seriously?  I love the fact that you pulled up a 3 month old post and tried to jump in the conversation.  I will agree, there was nothing constructive about me telling the guy I could do illustrations and beat him in golf.  I was simply trying to get under his skin b/c I thought he came across as telling us we dont understand insurance.  I would be to differ.  I teach the Insurance class for the CFP curriculum at a rather large university (and by rather large I mean maybe the 2nd largest in the country) . 

I don't really know why I am on here defending myself to you and arguing.  Oh wait, yes I do, you're a lawyer and thats what they do!!  Dont come back and tell me that I shouldnt assume that, I have 2 attorneys that are partners of mine. 

Dont get your panties in a wad b/c I corrected your mistake.  I'm sure I'll inaccurately say something on this board and I encourage you to come and correct me or put me in my place.  I'm sure you actually have some good things to offer given your experience.  However dont expect me to come cry when I don't like what you have to say.  Stop whining

Why did i read this?