Make sure you do not buy any equity indexed annuity. The story sounds good , make money when the market is up and never lose money when the market is down. In the long run the fee’s and hidden costs kill the contract. Also there are usually crazy surrender charges like 19 years. If you buy cash value life insurance I would go with 3 options
1. Whole Life
2. Term
3. Universal Life with a Secondary Guarantee ( Like a Infinite term) Not Flexible though

Term is much less expensive, up to 1/10th as much as whole life, or its variations. Term is also like renting, you get nothing in return, unless you die during the term period, and your heirs profit. It is pure family protection.
Whole life means you pay for insurance…………. your whole life. Yes, you can borrow against it, but will be charged interest on your own money. Yes, it does earn interest, but ususally not more than 3%. Yes, if tied to the S&P, you “may” get more…………… you may not.
You will do better in LEVEL TERM for 20 or more years, if you invest the savings or part of the difference from what you would have spent buying whole life.
Also, there is much higher commission for agents to sell anything but term. They do not do what’s best for the consumer, but for their own pockets, as they will get a percentage of what you pay year after year after year, as long as you pay this policy. You will help them in their retirement.
I got into insurance this year, then got out of it, due to its deceptive practices, and unbelievable contradictions.

Well, here’s what you do. Look at the cost of the term insurance, then look at the cost of the equity indexed life insurance. Now, subtract the term from the equity indexed life premium, and pretend you’re investing it at 10% for 20 years, use this calculator:

Now, see how much of the value you’re paying in to the equity indexed life actually goes to investment. Um, you’re going to be WAY WAY WAY ahead - like have 10X as much money - if you go for term/invest the difference.

The people that are happy with their equity indexed life are thinking, “wow, I’m getting 10% on my cash value!” when they should be thinking, “wow, only 10% of what I actually pay in goes to cash value, which means I”m paying about 7X as much as I should for this life insurance!”

Using life insurance as an investment tool is for people who are really bad at math. Life insurance is NOT a good investment tool - the vast majority of the money it makes goes to the insurance company, and the agent.

Almost all financial advisors who do not get a commmission from the products you purchawe prefer term life insurance to whole life because you can buy much more insurance for each premium dollar. Generally, the consenus is that people can invest their remaining dollars more efficiently than the return they get in the cash surrender of the whole life policy.

Attached is a link that explains the equity indexed life insurance idea. It looks as if the policies offer the insured to participate in some of the upside of the stock market while in essence also providing protection against loss in the market.

These plans apear to have many potential variations in them. One variation is what is the percent of the market percentage increase that the insured gets credited. Some policies have a limitation of 50% others are 80%. So, for example, if ther stock index gets a 15% return, the insured gets either 7.5% or up to 12% of the return. However, the policies also have a maximum return cap such as 10%. If the policy has that cap, then the cash surrender value is limited to a maximum 10% increase even if the market increase was 15% (and even if you have an 80% participant policy which would normally let you get a 12% return if there were no cap).

The downside protection will vary as well. Some insurers offer a guaranteed minimum return of, say 2%, but others say the minimum is 0% (which applies if the market has negative return for the year).

One insurance company whose literature I read says that the market return is based on the S&P 500, a nice index, but it excludes the dividende component of the stock return. Since the average dividend yield on the S&P 500 is in the area of 1.5%, this gives the insurer another 1.5% in which the insured does not participate. Historically, dividends are a large percentage of total stock market returns, so the market effect of excluding dividends could be a significant drag on the market return of the cash surrender value. The insureer also had the power to change some items like the interest cap rate and so on.

Based on what I have read, the premiums are likely to be higher for this product since the insurer is surely buying some market risk protection for guaranteeing some market rate of return and a minimum return.

It is very clear to me that you have to make sure you understand the idea of what index the policy is tied to (S&P 500 for example), what the market participation percentage is (do you get 50% or 80% of the market return as your return), whether there is an annual return cap whic further limites the market return, whether or not dividends on stocks are included in the stock index return and what the minumum return rate is. And compare premiums for different options (50% vs. 80%, diferent levels of guaranteed minimum return, etc.), including term insurance.

The whole package is likely to be much more conusfing and hard to evaluate than a normal insurance policy.

Personally, I have always preferred term insurance since I can get it for less cost and I invest my own money as I wish.