<prompt> Human: Im a recent college graduate and my mom wants to sign me up for life insurance. Im not sure if it is term life insurance or whole life insurance, and I dont think she really knows either. Her friend is an insurance agent with Transamerica and she suggested this plan for me. She told me that I would need to put 100 into the account each month and after 40 years I would have a lot of interest added on to my money Unsure about the percentage of interest. Im feeling uneasy about this because I have student loans and credit card balances to pay off and I have a very low income. Does this sound like a legit life insurance plan? To me it sounds more like an investment plan but I really have no idea. Can anyone offer any insight as to what kind of plan this is?  <response>: It sounds like your moms friend is selling a product shes getting a commission on.In general, youre better off paying down debt or investing aggressively instead of getting a fairly low return on a life insurance policy. That policy is going to return 1-2 compounding, not the 6-8 you could get in the market or 5.5 for student loans current rate. Its probably better than a CD but not really comparable to your other options at your age. I.e. retirement fundUnless you feel like you need life insurance to cover costs of those you support hint: you probably dont, I wouldnt bother. I suppose I would be nice for your mom to have 500k of you died tomorrow, but then youd be dead, so that doesnt really help you. 