A properly-structured, dividend-paying whole life insurance policy from a mutual life insurance company is more than worth it, not just for the death benefit which is guaranteed to be paid, regardless of how long you live, so long as you don't let the policy lapse, but also for the living benefits -- the ability to take policy loans at any time at a contractually guaranteed interest rate, guaranteed minimum cash value growth that only grows faster and faster over time, and additional non-guaranteed but highly-anticipated annual dividends that can be used to purchase more death benefit each year which will compound your cash value growth and lead to exponential growth over time. Term life insurance is only worth it if it's convertible to whole life and it's long-dated (i.e., 20 or 30 years rather than something shorter). That way, you can convert it into more whole life without having to go through medical underwriting. Look into the Infinite Banking Concept if you want to know how to build and deploy capital in the most efficient way possible. It talks about using whole life insurance this way in depth. Anything else -- universal, variable, equitable, indexed universal, etc. -- is hot garbage and you should stay away from it, even if the agent is pressuring you to buy it and selling you a fantasy of high returns (which they have literally never paid).