<prompt> Human: I am six months into a whole life insurance policy and am realizing now that I made a terrible mistake. After looking at a few different sources I feel better knowing that I am not the only person to shoot themselves in the foot like this but I still dont know what the best exit strategy is at this point. I am still very underwater but at the same time I dont want to just keep throwing good money after bad. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.  <response>: First apply for term life insurance if you even needed life insurance in the first place, BUT DONT cancel your whole life policy until you have a new term policy issued. Stupid insurance is better than no insurance. Then you cancel the policy and make sure to ask that the company refund all unused premiums especially if you cancel after they took another premium payment. The part that sucks is that theres probably very little to no money in your cash value but if theres any you will probably lose it because of the surrender charges.Experts usually recommend getting 8x-10x your annual income in term coverage till you hit retirement or your youngest child is over 18 years old.Also look into investing the difference you just saved into some mutual funds for an emergency fund.The stupid part is that life insurance agents will sell whole life any cash value product but own term insurance on themselves while investing the difference . At least you caught it early which is more than what most people can say when theyve sunk thousands into these horrible products. 