A whole life insurance policy is designed to provide insurance protection for your entire life, with built-in savings element, provided premiums are paid as specified in the policy.
There are two major types of a whole life:
- participating
- Non-participating
Participating whole life insurance appeals to people who are not interested in managing day-to-day investment risk and are attracted to the historical stability of the insurance companies. Equally important are the guarantees inherent in a participating whole life policy: level premium guaranteed for life; level death benefit and; guaranteed cash surrender value increasing over time.
Participating whole life policies are also eligible to receive policy dividends. While not guaranteed, dividends have the potential to enhance your policy’s long-term value while retaining tax-exempt status.
Non-Participating whole life insurance (Term 100) essentially is permanent life insurance. A Term to 100 policy provides protection to the policy owner for life. Premiums are payable until age 100. The difference between Term 100 and participating whole life insurance is that the Term 100 policy has no cash value and does not pay dividends. Like a regular term policy, Term to 100 premiums are set for the life of the policy, but because the policy covers the whole of your life, the premiums are higher than regular term insurance, at least at first.