The money in your whole life policy is not safe at all. Its not FDIC insured, it gets a low rate of return, and you lose it all if you die someday. If you ever wanted to use it, you have to borrow it. When you borrow money, you lower the face amount of your policy. So it is better to save your money in a Roth IRA than in life insurance. If you die someday, your beneficiary will get your investments.

Investing is a complicated matter because there is no guarantee that your money will earn a return. You can't predict how the stock market will perform in the future. But base on past history of the stock market in United States, the long term trend is that the stock market continues to grow.

How should you invest? Have you heard about mutual funds? A mutual fund is an investment company that pools together investors money and invest it into various companies (could be as little as 25 companies or as high as 300 companies). Because mutual funds invest in so many different companies, mutual funds are said to be diversified. Mutual funds are affordable and you can invest as little as $25/month or you can put in a lump sum of $500 and just let it sit there.

There are many mutual funds out there and only a few of them can match your investment objective. Before investing, you should figure out your investment objective, meaning are you willing to accept higher risks to get higher returns? Once you figure out your investment objective, it is now time to pick the mutual funds that meets your objective.

Which mutual fund should you pick? Look at some of the popular mutual funds such as Fidelity, Legg Mason, Van Kampen, and so on. They offer all kinds of mutual funds with variety of different risks and objectives. Then obtain a prospectus of that mutual fund before investing into it. You should read this prospectus very carefully. Check its past performance, its expense ratio, its turnover ratio. top holdings in the mutual fund, and so on. Your financial advisor should be able to help you out in this.

Good luck in investing. The best tip you can take from me is invest systematically. That means you invest the same amount of money every single month. What this do is that it lowers the cost per share.

Whole life insurance is much more expensive than term life insurance. If cheap coverage is what you're looking for then term is the way to go. Agents will tell you that the disadvantage is no cash value, but the cash value builds up so slowly that you'd be better off pocketing the difference in premium or even better investing it (you want tax deferred I would advise a Roth IRA). There is also refund of premium term where if you make all your premium payments for the life of the term, 15-30 years, then you'll get back every penny you've paid.

Whole life is more meant for older people who want to tax shelter funds for their estate. If you're young term is the way to go, it's dirt cheap.

Term life + Roth IRA = long time financial security.

Life insurance is a complex financial instrument to be acquired for specific purposes. As such, an insurance salesman is not qualified to advise you. Never purchase life insurance from an insurance agent or over the internet.

Added: In response to james m's edit, I am trying to do nothing but differentiate legitimate financial practitioners from salespersons who generally (many agents excepted) lack the knowledge, qualifications, and objectivity to engage in financial advisory services.

In all but a very few states, james' allegation of illegal use of the term "financial planner" is incorrect. The CFP designation is a registered commercial trademark, and not a credential regulated by any governmental body or law. A financial planner is an individual who is generally qualified in all major areas of personal financial management and makes his living offering objective, comprehensive, and independent financial advice. The FPA (the originator of the CFP designation) is not a legal authority in dictating who is qualified to engage in financial practice. I'm not convinced that they would even be competent to do so. I've known and worked with several fine CFPs, but none of them make the list of the best financial advisors I have known. In fact, few who top that list have any designations at all.

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Yep, that "adjustment" happens, and if the policy is actually not whole life, but a different kind of policy, it's going to start costing every year as the investment returns won't be enough to pay the premium every year. I'd suggest that the policy is not "paid up".

Also, if the insured reaches age 100 (or 121 for some newer policies) then the policy is considered matured and will pay the full cash value, which should be equal to or greater than the death benefit.

Those are general insurance practices, but each individual policy may differ. Hope this helps.

Instead of a whole life program you want to invest in term life insurance, and invest the difference. This is where you are only insured for thirty years or so and then the insurance ends. First, term insurance is cheap, it is not going to be a big piece of your monthly spending. Second of all your benefit if one of you dies is much larger, You can get ten times the coverage for less money. Third, you will not need tons of life insurance in thirty years when your children have left the house and made it on thier own.

For your savings, simply open a ROTH IRA account. When you make the term insurance payment take the extra money you would have spent on whole life and put it in the ROTH. If you do this you will see significantly more savings when you retire, and it will not be taxed as income when you take it out. This plan will leave you with more money in the long run,and more flexability in
the short run.

What is whole life insurance?
1) Its a level term insurance to a specified age (usually to age 95, 98 or 100) plus cash value.
2) It is very expensive when compared to term insurance
3) Cash value grows at a very low rate of return. In the first 10 years, you see a negative return on your money. But long term average is anywhere between 1-4%, depending on the company.
4) If you want to take money out, you have to borrow it and pay loan interest of 5-8%.
5) If you die someday, the insurance company pay the face amount of the policy (minus loans and missed premiums) to the beneficiary, but they keep all the cash value.
6) If you do get to live by the end of policy date (when you around age 100), the insurance company pay you the cash value, but you lose the insurance.

There's only one reason why that agent is trying to sell you whole life insurance: MONEY!
Next thing you'll know, that agent would try to sell you universal life insurance, a product that is more horrible than whole life, but it pays out more commissions.

Go with your instinct and find a different company who would listen to your needs. Try this site

http://free-best-life-insures-comparator-usa.blogspot.com/

Here you can get quotes from different life insurance companies in your area, its the best way to find an affordable life insurance with a reliable company.

The A.M. Best Company, an independent rater of insurance companies, has been rating them for over 100 years, since 1899. They assign grades to insurance companies, based on their financial strength, and ability to pay claims.

The best companies are the ones that have an A.M. Best rating of A++ (Superior), A+ (Superior), A (Excellent), A- (Excellent).

Here's my suggestion and recommendation:
http://free-best-life-insures-comparator-usa.blogspot.com/
And compare life insurance company at your place