<prompt> Human: I am in an email conversation with a whole life insurance agent, and would love some thoughts on what he is saying. I am generally opposed to whole life insurance, but Im not quite sure how to rebut his claims in this email. I know that whole life insurance can be polarizing; just looking for some thoughts on this.It is important to note that with a properly designed whole life plan, the face value death benefit grows each year, along with the cash value. Column 1 Insurance on the illustrations we looked at shows the death benefit growing each year. So there is a big difference between the death benefit pay out of a term policy and a whole life policy in the future. In the 1million scenario I ran for Catie, at age 70, the face value had grown to 2.74million. With 1.5million of tax-free accessible cash, and only 410k put into the policy. In a term scenario, you would not have any coverage and lost 16k on premiums. At age 54, the last year of the 30 year term payout, youd see a net gain of 984K 1mm 16k premiums. Alternatively, in the whole life scenario at that age, youd see a net gain of 1.57million 1.88mm face value 310k premiums. If you want to contend that you could invest those saved premiums, the first attachment will show you how tough that would be to beat. To me and a lot of my clients, it comes down to renting paying a bill for something that is statistically going to be a waste of money 95 of the time but is there in god-forbid worst case scenarios, Or owning a policy that pays a death benefit 100 of the time, plus has living tax and savings benefits. Rent the house or own the house. I say all that, but still agree with you that at this point life insurance fundamentally should absolutely be to protect your assets not yet acquire and to protect your family. Given your overall situation, that is why I recommended the cheapest term insurance policy for her, and one that has a conversion option to whole life. Just realize that as life evolves for you, I contend that whole life will be extremely valuable if your financial life in fact does go well, and comparing you to your peers I would bet that it does asset for you to possess. It will be the only place that you can put money on an after tax basis and never pay taxes again tax-deferred growth and tax-free access. Like a Roth, but you will be phased out of being able to do a Roth before you know it. And youll appreciate having a portion of your balance sheet that isnt correlated to the volatile stock market. There is a 2nd attachment about the benefits of having a non-market correlated asset to draw from in retirement during down markets.  <response>: How old are you now? Sounds like 24. Using his same growth assumptions, see what the comparable term investing in the index would be. I guarantee you is 20-50 higher than the 1.57 million gain over 30 years.Do. Not. Buy. 