I’ve read your comments three times now and I can honestly say I don’t think we disagree. For 95% or more of all needs, term insurance does the job you need it to. It gets you past the point where there is no nest egg and you can safely “self insure”.

Your question is “how long to have coverage”? I believe it’s important to carry true life insurance as long as you need it. If your family would be worse off upon your death without life insurance, you should carry it. If it only adds to already adequate assets, you shouldn’t.

Are there permanent needs. Absolutely yes. Life insurance expressly for the purpose of paying estate taxes makes sense and should be permanent. In this case, using assets as life insurance is a mistake unless you have an overpowering need to help bail out the government with your own money instead of life insurance proceeds.

Thanks for you thoughts. Ed

Here’s the one question I have for you. For just a moment forget about whole vs. term and focus on how long to have coverage.

Why would you not have coverage until you die?

The reality is that you do have life insurance til the day you die, even if you dropped your term years ago. Why? Take your assets at retirement and ask yourself why you can’t spend every penny?

Because you have no idea when you’re going to die. So the common solution is live off the interest, keep your nest egg intact, and enjoy retirement. So what happens when you die?

You pass on your nest egg. Your nest egg became life insurance. So you never got rid of life insurance, you simply told the life insurance company, who is really good at insuring things “No Thanks, I am designating myself and my family as the new life insurance company”

If you begin to get this, and you probably won’t at first because of the ingrained marketing, you will see that having life insurance until you die is the most effective.

So term to age 100 or whole life, which is more cost effective? If you don’t know the answer to this last question, it’s crucial you let go off all your beliefs about what you hear and learn more.

You are right on target about the use and value of term life insurance.

It is not a waste of money if you outlive the policy, because term life insurance is used to provide much needed financial protection for your loved ones. It is not an investment.