In the mid 80's someone sold me a universal life insurance policy.  
The agent showed me these computer printouts of the fantastic values my 
policy would be worth when I retired.  No one told me to question the 
assumptions on which these projections were based.  Would the interest rates,
which were high back then, always remain that high?  Right now at the time of
this writing (1992) they are very low.  No one told me to ask how much 
commission I was paying.  (Would you pay a bank a $100 commission for the 
privilege of opening a CD?)  After I bought the policy, I found it difficult 
to track the return on my investment.  How could I be sure that it would 
really be worth what I had been to believe it would?  After a while, I sold.  
I'm not the only one who has come to this realization.  A magazine article I 
read said that about one-third of the people who buy a whole-life policy cash 
in during the first two years.
        Since that time I've learned a few things in the reading I've done.
One thing is to keep insurance and investments separate.  There are good 
reasons for this.  You pay high commissions on whole life and universal life
and such.  It's hard to track the performance of such policies when used as
investments.  Avoid these commissions and track your investments more easily 
with no load mutual funds, which are recommended almost universally by 
financial experts.
        Another tip - don't buy life insurance unless you need it.  You need
it only if and when you have dependents who rely on your income.  Also, you 
don't need it for minor children.  If something should happen, your loss will 
be great, but it will not be a financial loss.