Whole Life Insurance as a means to shelter "safe money"

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not for the death benefit but for a means to protect and grow some retirement assets. "safely".

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I don't see how it is much of a growth vehicle - at all.

Most people get sold these policies in middle age - they are probably a better value for young purchasers - who really can't afford enough to make this a viable investment vehicle - while I'm certain that tax experts and financial managers may disagree with me (and I'm all ears, by the way) - unless you actually die holding the policy, virtually any combination of term life insurance and a variety of mutual funds (perhaps heavier in bonds, etc.) are going to provide a better ROI over any period of time.

Just my 2 cents and probably not worth that.

Whole life as an investment vehicle would be pretty far down the list of buckets in which I would place money. I don't believe in absolutes so I would never say "don't ever do it" but certainly you would have to look at the overall picture of your finances.

The best piece of advice, though, it to take a good, hard look at the projections. Some agents/companies like to run an illustration with a pretty aggressive rate. That's not guaranteed. There is a guaranteed rate, which is often much lower and usually not much better than inflation. Plus, you have the fees.

Remember - with whole life insurance - you are buying two things - cash value growth and insurance protection. It's going to be more expensive than buying only one of those things.

In any event... if you are serious... I'd look at Northwestern Mutual, Mass Mutual and New York Life. And that's about it.

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I like that you can also take from it if you need to so its fairly liquid

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Be careful in the area of liquidity if you may have a need to access your money in the early years of a whole life policy. If you look at the historical year by year returns for the major carrier's whole life policies most show a negative rate for the first 5 to 10 years,the 5% return used in illustrations is usually a 20 year average.

I really don't know much at all about life insurance, but I bought a whole life policy from Northwestern Mutual to help out a friend who had just started working for them. I was about 28 and am now 60. It had a $20,000 death benefit, with dividends reinvested each year to buy up additional insurance. it costs me $18/mo. I just got my statement in the mail today. The death benefit is $37,722 and cash value is $19,353. I always kept it up because I though $18 was not very much. Glad I did.

Use a traditional IRA as a safety vehicle. Tax deductible all the way up until April 15 of the tax year.

I bought one in my mid 20s - it has worked out nicely for me.