Originally Posted by sailingfun

The biggest advantage to whole life policies or annuities are the absolutely phenomenal amounts of money they make for the selling agent and the company. Costs that you can’t even see are baked in everywhere and you need a attorney who specializes in these policies to even read the contract.
As mentioned by others if you are near retirement age you should be fully self insured as a Delta pilot. In addition if you have a PBGC benefit you have not started drawing you have an excellent free insurance product.
The company provided insurance is also not that expensive. Strangely some pilots think the imputed income number is the actual amount you pay in taxes.

Originally Posted by Gunfighter

That sounds like spending a dollar to save a dime.

Having heard multiple pitches for various high cash value policies the conclusion I keep reaching is buying term and investing the difference in a tax efficient ETF works better. I haven't looked at the Delta GVUL numbers specifically, but I doubt they tell a different story. The general premise behind the policies it to bundle insurance and an investment in such a complicated manner that the buyer rarely understands exactly what is going on. The insurance company gets a lifetime of deposits with only one redemption option that doesn't involve hefty fees and surrender charges.

On the flip side. Life insurance companies are a great source of long term financing for investment property. Just to be clear I'm talking about a life company real estate loan, not a cash value policy loan.They are cash rich with a low cost of capital (ie low returns to policyholders) and expect to hold the capital for decades before returning it.
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