Why Is Permanent Life Insurance Bad? 
Permanent life insurance is NOT bad ! There are a number of different types of `` permanent '' life insurance and some are better than others depending on your goals and needs . What is bad is when sales people misrepresent the policy they are selling ! Permanent insurance includes Whole Life , Universal Life , and the variations of Universal such as Indexed , variable and variable indexed . Variable basically means that it 's tied to the stock market . Indexed basically means that it 's tied to a particular `` index '' such as the S&P 500 . Whole Life is the only one with Guaranteed Premiums , Cash Value growth and Death Benefit with no downside risk . 