Is Life Insurance a Good Investment
Is Life Insurance a Good Investment
Jason Stolz CLTC, CRPC
Is life insurance a good investment? It is one of the most common and most misunderstood questions in personal finance. The confusion usually starts with the word “investment.” Life insurance was not originally designed to compete with stocks, real estate, or mutual funds. It was built to protect income and provide certainty at the moment it is needed most. Yet over time, certain types of life insurance have evolved into sophisticated financial tools that can create tax-advantaged growth, stable cash value accumulation, and flexible access to capital. When evaluated properly — within the context of a broader retirement, estate, and risk-management strategy — life insurance can absolutely function as a powerful financial asset. The key is understanding what it is meant to do, what it is not meant to do, and how it fits alongside traditional investments.
If your goal is pure protection at the lowest possible cost, term insurance is often the starting point. It provides income replacement during your highest-earning years and can be structured around mortgage balances, dependent timelines, and business obligations. If you are unsure how much coverage is appropriate, you can use our life insurance calculator to estimate protection needs based on income, debt, and long-term planning objectives. For clients who want more than temporary coverage — those who are thinking about retirement tax strategy, estate liquidity, or guaranteed legacy outcomes — permanent policies such as whole life or indexed universal life enter the conversation. At that point, the question shifts from “Is this an investment?” to “What role does this play in my overall financial structure?”
How Life Insurance Cash Value Actually Works
Life insurance is often described as an “investment” primarily because permanent policies accumulate cash value over time. That cash value grows tax-deferred and, when structured properly, can be accessed in a tax-efficient manner. Unlike market-based brokerage accounts, the cash value in traditional whole life policies is not exposed to stock market volatility. Indexed universal life policies credit interest based on index performance but include downside protection mechanisms — floors and caps — that prevent direct market loss. This stability is what attracts individuals who want a portion of their portfolio insulated from volatility. It is not about outperforming equities during bull markets. It is about creating a reliable asset class that behaves differently from the rest of the portfolio — a ballast rather than an engine.
The mechanics of cash value accumulation differ meaningfully across policy types. In a traditional whole life policy, the insurance company credits a guaranteed interest rate to the cash value — typically between 2 and 4 percent on a guaranteed basis, with the potential for non-guaranteed dividends from mutual companies that can meaningfully improve the effective return over time. In a properly participating whole life policy from a mutual insurer, those dividends can be used to purchase paid-up additional insurance, which accelerates the growth of both the cash value and the death benefit simultaneously. This is not the same as the guaranteed rate alone. In an indexed universal life policy, the credited interest is tied to the performance of an index such as the S&P 500, subject to a cap on the upside and a floor — typically zero — that prevents negative crediting in down years. The tradeoff is that the investor gives up some of the market’s upside in exchange for protection against the downside. In a variable universal life policy, premiums are invested directly in subaccounts that function like mutual funds, exposing the cash value to actual market gains and losses without a floor. Each structure involves a different balance between growth potential, guarantees, and internal cost.
Internal costs are one of the most important and least discussed elements of the life insurance as investment conversation. Every permanent policy carries a cost of insurance — the charge that pays for the actual death benefit protection — along with administrative fees, and in some policies, additional rider charges or management fees on subaccount assets. These internal costs reduce the net return on the cash value accumulation. In the early years of most policies, the cost of insurance is relatively modest relative to the death benefit provided, and the bulk of the premium goes toward establishing the cash value base. As the insured ages, the annual cost of insurance increases because mortality risk increases with age. A properly designed policy accounts for this cost curve in the premium structure and the accumulation projections. A poorly designed policy — one that is overpremium-light on premium or front-loaded with riders that are not appropriate for the client’s needs — can underperform significantly relative to the illustration the client was shown at sale. This is why policy design and carrier selection matter enormously when using life insurance as a financial planning tool rather than simply for pure protection.
The Leverage Argument: Why No Mutual Fund Can Do This
Another reason life insurance is described as an “investment” is the concept of immediate leverage. With traditional investments, capital must accumulate over time before it can meaningfully impact a family’s financial security. A 35-year-old who begins investing $500 per month in a brokerage account does not have $1 million available to their family on day one. With life insurance, the full death benefit is in place from the moment the first premium is paid. A relatively modest annual premium secures a guaranteed payout — potentially many times larger than the premium paid to that point — that can replace decades of income, eliminate mortgage debt, fund education for multiple children, or preserve a business from forced dissolution. No mutual fund can replicate that kind of immediate, guaranteed financial leverage.
This leverage is particularly critical during the wealth-building years when the gap between the family’s financial exposure and its accumulated assets is largest. A family with a $500,000 mortgage, two young children, two car payments, and $80,000 in savings faces a dramatically different picture if the primary earner dies than a family that has accumulated $2 million in investments. Life insurance closes that gap on day one of coverage. This is the fundamental reason why asking whether life insurance is a “good investment” before addressing whether appropriate protection exists is asking the wrong question in the wrong order. For families where one or both spouses generate the majority of household income, and for business owners funding buy-sell agreements to ensure continuity if a partner dies unexpectedly, the leverage argument is not theoretical — it is the financial architecture that prevents catastrophic disruption.
The “Buy Term and Invest the Difference” Debate — Addressed Honestly
No discussion of life insurance as an investment is complete without addressing the “buy term and invest the difference” argument — the position, popularized by many financial commentators, that consumers are always better served buying inexpensive term insurance and investing the premium difference in index funds rather than purchasing permanent insurance. Like most generalized financial rules, this argument is sometimes correct and sometimes misleading, depending almost entirely on the specific situation.
The buy term and invest the difference strategy works well under specific conditions: the investor genuinely does invest the difference consistently and with discipline; they do not need permanent coverage beyond the term period; their income replacement need will diminish as savings accumulate; and they face no estate planning, business continuity, or tax diversification needs that permanent insurance could serve better. Under these conditions, the math often favors term plus aggressive index fund investing, particularly over long horizons where equity returns significantly outpace the guaranteed accumulation in a whole life policy.
The strategy breaks down — and often produces inferior outcomes — under a different set of conditions that are more common than many consumers realize. Most people do not reliably invest the difference. Without the forced savings mechanism of a premium commitment, the “difference” tends to be consumed by lifestyle spending rather than invested systematically. Additionally, term insurance eventually expires. A 30-year level term policy purchased at 35 expires at 65 — precisely when many people discover they still have insurance needs but can no longer obtain affordable coverage because their health has changed. Permanent coverage, if purchased early when health is excellent, locks in insurability for life regardless of what health changes occur in the subsequent decades. For someone who develops a serious health condition at 50 — diabetes, heart disease, cancer — the permanent policy purchased at 35 is irreplaceable. A term-only strategy offers no answer to this scenario. The permanent insurance buyer has coverage that continues unchanged; the term-only buyer may find that any new coverage is unaffordable, unavailable, or excludes the exact conditions that now concern them most.
The tax argument further complicates the straightforward comparison. A brokerage account earning market returns accumulates to a taxable balance — dividends are taxed annually, and capital gains are taxed when realized, with the entire balance ultimately subject to estate tax above applicable exemptions. A properly structured permanent policy accumulates on a tax-deferred basis, allows access via loans that do not create taxable income if managed correctly, and delivers a death benefit that is generally income tax-free to beneficiaries. For investors in higher tax brackets — or for those whose planning includes wealth transfer — the tax advantages of permanent insurance can meaningfully close the nominal return gap relative to taxable brokerage alternatives. This comparison is rarely made fairly by commentators who compare gross stock market returns to the guaranteed accumulation rate in a whole life policy without adjusting for the tax treatment of each.
When Life Insurance Should NOT Be Used as an Investment
Intellectual honesty requires addressing the circumstances where using life insurance as an investment tool is a poor decision — because those circumstances are real and not uncommon. Life insurance performs poorly as an investment vehicle when the policy is purchased primarily for accumulation without a genuine need for the death benefit that the policy provides. If an investor has no dependents, no business obligations, no estate planning need, and no income that needs replacing, the cost of insurance embedded in the permanent policy creates a drag on accumulation that a straightforward investment account would not carry. In this case, the tax advantages of the policy may not justify the insurance costs, and the investor would typically be better served by maximizing traditional tax-advantaged accounts — 401(k), IRA, HSA — before considering cash-value life insurance.
Life insurance also performs poorly as an investment when the policy is underfunded relative to the death benefit selected — meaning the premium payments are insufficient to support robust cash value accumulation after covering the cost of insurance. An investor who purchases a $5 million universal life policy on a minimum-premium basis to “keep it affordable” should not expect meaningful cash value accumulation. The policy is optimized for death benefit efficiency, not accumulation. Conversely, a policy specifically designed for cash value accumulation — often called a “paid-up additions” design in whole life or a “minimum death benefit, maximum premium” design in indexed universal life — is funded at or near the maximum level relative to the death benefit, concentrating as much premium as possible into the accumulation component and as little as possible into the cost of insurance. The difference between these two designs can be dramatic, and purchasing the wrong design while expecting accumulation results is one of the most common sources of life insurance buyer disappointment.
Finally, life insurance as an investment requires a long time horizon to be effective. The internal costs of most permanent policies mean that early cash surrender value — the amount available if you terminate the policy in the first few years — is substantially less than the premiums paid. Most policies require seven to twelve years of funding before the cash value meaningfully exceeds the premiums paid into the policy. An investor who might need liquidity within five years should not rely on a life insurance policy as a liquid emergency reserve. Short-term liquidity needs are better served by other instruments — emergency funds, short-term bonds, money market accounts — while the permanent policy serves its longer-term role in the overall financial structure.
Life Insurance in Retirement Planning: The Tax Diversification Layer
As financial plans mature, life insurance often transitions from basic protection to strategic retirement planning. During accumulation years, the focus is income replacement and liability protection. As retirement approaches, attention shifts to tax efficiency and income flexibility. Required distributions from qualified retirement accounts — traditional IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s — can push retirees into higher tax brackets precisely when they may be least equipped to absorb the tax burden. That is why many individuals planning around required minimum distributions explore whether permanent life insurance cash value can serve as a supplemental income source that does not directly increase taxable income when accessed via policy loans. This is not a universal solution, and it requires careful policy design maintained over many years, but for properly structured policies, it can provide meaningful tax diversification alongside traditional retirement accounts.
The concept of tax diversification in retirement means having access to income from multiple sources that are taxed differently — or not at all in the case of policy loans from a non-MEC permanent policy. A retiree who has all of their savings in pre-tax traditional IRAs faces a situation where every dollar of retirement income generates ordinary income tax. A retiree who also has Roth accounts, taxable brokerage accounts, and a permanent life insurance policy with accumulated cash value has more flexibility to manage which income sources to draw from in any given year and potentially to smooth their tax liability across a retirement that may span 30 years. Life insurance policy loans, when drawn from a properly structured and maintained permanent policy, generally do not appear on the tax return at all — they are not counted as income for Social Security benefit taxation thresholds, Medicare IRMAA surcharge calculations, or Affordable Care Act premium tax credit eligibility calculations. These non-obvious interactions between policy loan income and other tax thresholds can produce financial benefits that are difficult to quantify from a simple return comparison but are real and meaningful in retirement planning practice.
Understanding the MEC Rule and Why Policy Design Matters
One of the critical technical constraints governing cash-value life insurance as an accumulation vehicle is the Modified Endowment Contract rule established by the Technical and Miscellaneous Revenue Act of 1988. A policy becomes a Modified Endowment Contract — commonly called a MEC — when it is funded too quickly relative to the death benefit it provides. Specifically, a policy fails the seven-pay test and becomes a MEC when the cumulative premiums paid in the first seven years exceed what would be needed to pay up the policy in full over seven years. Once a policy is classified as a MEC, the tax advantages of policy loans are eliminated: withdrawals and loans from a MEC become taxable to the extent of gain in the policy, and loans taken before age 59½ may also be subject to the 10 percent early withdrawal penalty. Understanding how policies interact with IRS rules — such as avoiding classification as a Modified Endowment Contract — becomes essential to preserving tax advantages.
The MEC rule creates an important design constraint for policies used primarily for accumulation. If the goal is maximum cash value growth while preserving the tax-free loan access, the policy must be structured to stay below the seven-pay threshold — which means the death benefit cannot be too low relative to the premiums being paid. This is counterintuitive: to maximize accumulation while maintaining tax advantages, the policy must carry enough death benefit to accommodate the premium stream without crossing the MEC line. This balance between premium level, death benefit amount, and accumulated value is what experienced life insurance designers manage through careful product selection and structuring. It is also why working with an adviser who understands both the insurance and the tax dimensions of permanent policy design is important for anyone seriously considering life insurance as a planning tool rather than simply a protection purchase.
Specialized Use Cases: High-Risk Occupations, Health Underwriting, and Business Applications
For individuals in higher-risk occupations or with specialized underwriting considerations, life insurance can also function as a risk management anchor with long-term financial planning implications that go beyond simple income replacement. Someone researching life insurance for electricians is not simply comparing rates; they are evaluating how to protect income in a physically demanding field where occupational hazard considerations affect carrier selection and policy design. Likewise, individuals reviewing high-risk life insurance options are often seeking carriers that understand occupational or health-related hazards without penalizing coverage terms excessively. In these cases, life insurance is not primarily an “investment debate.” It is financial protection that, when structured thoughtfully, has long-term planning implications that extend to business continuity, estate planning, and retirement income strategy.
Health and underwriting also influence the value equation of permanent policies specifically. For individuals researching life insurance for overweight individuals or those with other underwriting complexities such as controlled diabetes, treated hypertension, or prior health events, permanent coverage can sometimes offer more flexible structuring than term policies. Some carriers offer guaranteed issue or simplified issue permanent policies that may carry higher premiums but provide access to permanent coverage for individuals who might face difficulty obtaining standard term. The tradeoff in premium-to-coverage ratio must be evaluated carefully in those cases, but the access to a permanent policy and its attendant cash value accumulation — even at reduced efficiency — may be more valuable than no permanent coverage at all for certain planning situations.
Cost is a critical factor throughout the investment conversation. Term insurance is generally the least expensive option per dollar of death benefit because it is designed for temporary protection without internal accumulation. Permanent insurance costs more because it combines lifelong coverage with internal accumulation and contractual guarantees. Critics often compare permanent life insurance internal rates of return to historical stock market averages without accounting for guarantees, tax treatment, the absence of sequence-of-returns risk, or the portfolio-stabilizing role a non-correlated asset can play. That comparison is incomplete. Permanent life insurance is not structured to replace aggressive growth assets. It is structured to create predictability, tax diversification, estate efficiency, and guaranteed death benefit that no investment account can replicate. Clients evaluating long-term guaranteed products frequently compare permanent life insurance to tools such as fixed annuities to understand how insurers engineer contractual stability, and the comparison is often instructive: both products use the insurer’s general account to create guarantees that market investments cannot provide, but they serve different purposes and carry different liquidity, taxation, and legacy characteristics.
Life Insurance in the Retirement Income Picture
For retirees and near-retirees, life insurance can serve as a stabilizing complement to pension and annuity decisions in ways that are often overlooked in the simplified “investment or not?” debate. When someone is deciding what to do with a pension after retirement, survivor benefits and income guarantees become central concerns. A pension that offers maximum single-life income versus a joint-and-survivor option presents a classic tradeoff: take the higher income for the primary retiree’s lifetime, or accept a reduced payment to ensure the surviving spouse continues to receive income. Life insurance can serve as an alternative mechanism for funding the survivor’s income — the primary retiree takes the maximum single-life pension income, and a life insurance policy provides the surviving spouse with a lump sum or income stream that replaces what the joint annuity would have provided. This is sometimes called the “pension max” strategy, and while it is not appropriate for everyone, it illustrates how life insurance functions as a planning lever that enhances retirement flexibility.
Similarly, couples comparing payout structures in joint lifetime income annuities may use life insurance to equalize legacy outcomes or offset reduced survivor income without sacrificing the higher single-life payout. In these cases, life insurance functions not as an investment in isolation but as a coordination tool within a broader retirement income strategy that also includes Social Security timing, annuity selection, qualified account distribution planning, and estate objectives. The interaction between all of these pieces is where genuine financial planning value is created — and it is almost never captured by the simple question of whether the internal rate of return on a permanent policy compares favorably to the S&P 500.
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Putting It All Together: The Right Question to Ask
Ultimately, asking whether life insurance is a good investment is less useful than asking whether it solves a specific financial problem. Does it protect income that cannot be replaced if the primary earner dies unexpectedly? Does it provide tax diversification in retirement alongside pre-tax and Roth accounts? Does it create certainty for heirs or business partners at a moment when certainty is most needed? Does it stabilize a portfolio by creating a non-correlated, guaranteed asset that behaves differently from equities and real estate? Does it provide access to capital via tax-favored loans during a period when liquidating market investments would generate taxable gains or lock in losses? If the answer to one or more of those questions is yes, then life insurance is not competing with investments — it is strengthening the overall financial structure in ways that no single investment can replicate.
A diversified financial plan rarely relies on a single strategy. It layers protection, growth, liquidity, and guarantees in a way that supports both present security and future flexibility. Life insurance occupies a specific and often irreplaceable role in that structure — not because it produces the highest nominal return, but because it provides guarantees, tax characteristics, and immediate leverage that no other financial instrument can exactly replicate. The question is not whether life insurance is generically a “good investment.” The question is whether the specific problem it solves is a problem worth solving — and for most families, most business owners, and most individuals with meaningful assets and obligations, the answer is yes.
For individuals focused on final expense planning, resources such as burial insurance for seniors over 50 may be more appropriate than complex permanent designs. For others exploring broader disability protection, understanding options like short-term disability insurance can complement life coverage within a comprehensive risk plan.
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FAQs: Is Life Insurance a Good Investment?
Life insurance is first and foremost financial protection — it provides a guaranteed death benefit to beneficiaries that no investment account can replicate with the same immediacy and certainty. That is the foundation. Some permanent policy types — particularly whole life and indexed universal life — also accumulate cash value over time that can serve additional financial planning functions: tax-deferred growth, tax-favored access via policy loans, estate liquidity, and retirement income supplementation. Whether life insurance functions as an “investment” depends on the specific policy type, how it is designed and funded, the time horizon, and the financial problems it is intended to solve. For clients who need permanent coverage and can benefit from the tax and accumulation features, well-structured permanent insurance can be a meaningful component of a broader financial strategy. For clients who need temporary protection and have other efficient vehicles for accumulation, term insurance is typically the more appropriate choice.
Term life insurance provides pure death benefit protection for a defined period — typically 10, 20, or 30 years — at the lowest cost per dollar of coverage. It does not accumulate cash value, and once the term expires, the coverage ends with no residual financial benefit. Permanent life insurance — whole life, indexed universal life, or variable universal life — is designed to remain in force for the insured’s entire lifetime and includes a cash value component that accumulates over time. The tradeoff is cost: permanent insurance premiums are substantially higher than term premiums for the same death benefit. That higher premium, however, includes both the ongoing insurance protection and the internal accumulation component that builds accessible, tax-advantaged cash value. For planning purposes, term and permanent insurance often serve different roles in the same financial strategy — term for the pure income replacement need during earning years, permanent for the long-term estate, retirement, and tax planning objectives where the accumulation and guaranteed features matter most.
Cash value growth mechanics vary significantly by policy type. In a traditional participating whole life policy from a mutual insurance company, cash value grows at a guaranteed rate — typically 2 to 4 percent — plus non-guaranteed dividends declared by the company from its surplus earnings. Those dividends can be used to purchase paid-up additional insurance, which accelerates both cash value and death benefit growth. In an indexed universal life policy, interest is credited based on the performance of an index such as the S&P 500, subject to a cap on maximum crediting and a floor — typically zero — that prevents negative crediting in down years. In a variable universal life policy, premiums are invested in market subaccounts similar to mutual funds, with cash value exposed to full market gains and losses without a floor. Across all types, growth is tax-deferred while funds remain in the policy. The net growth after internal policy costs depends on the policy design, funding level, and specific carrier — which is why policy design and illustration analysis matter before purchase.
Every permanent life insurance policy carries a cost of insurance — the charge that pays for the death benefit protection — which increases as the insured ages because mortality risk increases over time. Additional charges typically include administrative or policy fees, and in variable or indexed products, there may be index strategy charges, spread deductions, or subaccount management fees. In the early years of most permanent policies, these internal costs mean that the cash surrender value — the amount you would receive if you terminated the policy — is substantially less than the premiums paid. Most well-structured accumulation-focused permanent policies require seven to twelve years before the cash value meaningfully exceeds total premiums paid in. Understanding these costs and the timeline to break-even on a cash value basis is critical to evaluating whether a permanent policy’s accumulation features are appropriate for your situation and time horizon. A qualified insurance adviser should be able to illustrate both the guaranteed and non-guaranteed projections, along with an internal rate of return analysis, so you can evaluate the policy against alternatives on a comparable basis.
Yes. Most permanent life insurance policies allow the owner to access accumulated cash value through two primary mechanisms: withdrawals and policy loans. A withdrawal is a direct removal of funds from the cash value, which may reduce the death benefit and, in some cases, trigger taxation if the amount withdrawn exceeds the cost basis in the policy. A policy loan allows the owner to borrow against the cash value without removing it from the policy — the cash value continues to accumulate, and the loan accrues interest. If the policy is not a Modified Endowment Contract, policy loans are generally not taxable income regardless of the amount borrowed or the gain in the policy. However, loans reduce the net death benefit by the outstanding loan balance, and if the policy lapses or is surrendered with an outstanding loan balance that exceeds the cost basis, the excess becomes taxable income. Managing policy loans carefully — keeping them within sustainable levels and maintaining the policy in force — is important to preserving both the tax advantages and the long-term viability of the coverage.
A Modified Endowment Contract, or MEC, is a life insurance policy that has been funded too aggressively relative to its death benefit — specifically, one where cumulative premiums paid in the first seven policy years exceed the amount that would pay up the policy in full over seven years (the seven-pay test). Once a policy is classified as a MEC, the favorable tax treatment of policy loans is eliminated: loans and withdrawals from a MEC are taxable to the extent of gain in the policy, and distributions before age 59½ may also be subject to the 10 percent early distribution penalty. For investors specifically using permanent life insurance for its tax-favored access features — borrowing against cash value without triggering income tax — avoiding MEC status is essential. This is one of the primary reasons that high-premium, accumulation-focused policy designs must be carefully structured: the premium must be high enough to build meaningful cash value efficiently, but not so high relative to the death benefit that the policy crosses the MEC threshold. Working with an adviser who understands IRS guidelines on policy design is critical to getting this balance right.
Not always — it depends heavily on specific circumstances. The buy term and invest the difference strategy produces superior outcomes when the investor genuinely does invest the difference consistently, has no permanent insurance need beyond the term period, and faces no estate planning, tax diversification, or business continuity needs that permanent insurance could serve more efficiently. Under those conditions, the long-term equity returns available in index funds can significantly outpace permanent insurance accumulation. However, most people do not reliably invest the difference without a forced savings mechanism. Additionally, term insurance expires — and at the end of a 30-year term, many people discover they still need coverage but can no longer obtain it affordably because their health has changed. Permanent coverage purchased when young and healthy locks in insurability for life. For investors in higher tax brackets, the tax-favored access to permanent policy cash value can meaningfully close the nominal return gap versus taxable brokerage accounts when the full tax picture is considered. The right answer is not universal — it depends on the individual’s financial situation, insurance needs, investment discipline, tax position, and long-term goals.
Life insurance death benefits are generally income tax-free to the named beneficiaries under IRC Section 101(a). This is one of the most significant tax advantages of life insurance — a beneficiary who receives a $1 million death benefit pays no federal income tax on that amount, regardless of how much was paid in premiums or how much the policy appreciated over its lifetime. Cash value growth inside the policy is tax-deferred, meaning no annual income tax is owed on credited interest or gains while the funds remain in the policy. Policy loans taken from a non-MEC policy that remains in force are generally not taxable income. For estate tax purposes, life insurance death benefits are included in the taxable estate if the insured owns the policy. Properly structured irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) can be used to remove policy proceeds from the taxable estate. These tax characteristics — income tax-free death benefits, tax-deferred accumulation, and potentially tax-favored access — are core reasons why life insurance occupies a unique and often irreplaceable position in tax-aware financial planning.
Permanent life insurance as an accumulation and planning tool is generally most appropriate for individuals who have a genuine and ongoing need for the death benefit the policy provides; who have already maximized contributions to other tax-advantaged accounts such as 401(k), IRA, and HSA; who have a long time horizon of at least 10 to 15 years for the accumulation component to develop meaningfully; who are working with an adviser capable of designing and monitoring the policy correctly over time; and who value the specific characteristics of permanent insurance — guaranteed death benefit, tax-deferred growth, tax-favored access, and non-correlation with market assets — over the simplicity and lower cost of term coverage. It is typically less appropriate for individuals who lack a permanent insurance need, who need near-term liquidity, who are not yet maximizing other tax-advantaged options, or who are not willing to commit to the long time horizon that permanent insurance accumulation requires to be efficient.
Yes. As an independent insurance agency with contracts across more than 100 carriers, Diversified Insurance Brokers compares term, whole life, indexed universal life, and other life insurance options across multiple insurers to help clients identify the coverage type and carrier that best fits their specific situation. This independent access means the recommendation is based on the client’s needs and the available market rather than on a single company’s product lineup. Clients can use the calculators on this page to begin exploring coverage levels, or they can request personalized guidance directly through the contact options provided to discuss their specific goals, health profile, and financial objectives with an experienced adviser.
About the Author:
Jason Stolz, CLTC, CRPC, DIA, CAA and Chief Underwriter at Diversified Insurance Brokers (NPN 20471358), is a senior insurance and retirement professional with more than two decades of real-world experience helping individuals, families, and business owners protect their income, assets, and long-term financial stability. As a long-time partner of the nationally licensed independent agency Diversified Insurance Brokers, Jason provides trusted guidance across multiple specialties—including fixed and indexed annuities, long-term care planning, personal and business disability insurance, life insurance solutions, Group Health, and short-term health coverage. Diversified Insurance Brokers maintains active contracts with over 100 highly rated insurance carriers, ensuring clients have access to a broad and competitive marketplace.
His practical, education-first approach has earned recognition in publications such as VoyageATL, highlighting his commitment to financial clarity and client-focused planning. Drawing on deep product knowledge and years of hands-on field experience, Jason helps clients evaluate carriers, compare strategies, and build retirement and protection plans that are both secure and cost-efficient. Visitors who want to explore current annuity rates and compare options across multiple insurers can also use this annuity quote and comparison tool.
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