<prompt> Human: So my dad, 47, has recently been brought in to sale Universal Life Insurance. He thinks its an incredible investment opportunity and is trying to convince me to start a plan as my retirement fund instead of contributing to an IRA.Im worried that he is sinking all this money into training and convincing our entire family to start a policy for something that is not actually the best financial investment.Anyone have an opinion on Universal Life Insurance?  <response>: Universal and Whole life policies are horrible investments and not great insurance. For about a tenth of the cost of a universal life policy you could go get a term life policy with the same death benefit and invest the left over cash into some quality mutual funds and come out way ahead in the investment side of it. Do not do this as substitute for an IRA. 