My mother had a whole life policy that switched to me paying it. It was around 500 a year, 10K payout….instead we canceled it and got term! Much cheaper and higher payout.

Holy crap – no wonder they push it so much!

Glad it helped, man :)

I’m glad, Jane :) We’ve got a great community here no doubt!

Yeah girl!! Getting closer every year, too :)

Oh wow….

Great insight, Jane!

Should have written “without” at the end

Thanks for the validation. Thanks to your post, found out it was my husbands term attached to the universal policy that nearly doubled, and mine up a bit, for the next 5 year, a common occurrence apparently. Saw our life insurance guy and thrashed things out. We need the amount we are insured for but only until Gary retires, so we decided to use our commuted value to pay the upgraded difference until we decide to dump the Term policies at retirement. Thanks to your column, and me taking action, we saved $82 a month, using the cv we wouldn’t otherwise have had such a good use for anyway. Univeral/Whole Life has worked for us in our situation. Never did consider it as an investment tool, and still don’t. At the end of the day, we’re still insured and when we quit the term policies, we will be covered with need for medical testing or increasing fees. LUV YA! Lee

Q#2 – My suggestion would be to hold on to it until you break even on your contributions and the cash out value. I had the same thing happen to me and I had to wait 8 years to break even on it. That way you are getting your money back dollar for dollar and not taking such a huge hit. Also, you could see if there are any riders that you could remove in hopes to make the cash value higher.