Investors, who once upon a time thought paying higher prices for whole life insurance was frivolous, are now thankful that they listened to their investment counsel. While the cost of whole life insurance policies hasn’t come down, the stability that they offer has only increased in value.

Though whole life insurance may not give as high a return on investment over the short term - like technology stocks – whole life insurance is proving to be the golden nugget in many investors’ portfolios. Designed to be more of a cash reserve that builds up over time against the death benefit, a whole life policy allows for policy owners to borrow against the accumulated cash value for things like medical expenses or college tuition. The policies are tax-deferred and upon maturity of the contract, the cash value usually equals whatever the death benefit would have been.

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There’s no getting around the fact that the current economic conditions are getting on peoples’ nerves. The stress factors that many people have to deal with are rising rapidly as life insurance and other financial matters grind away at the thoughts and worries of everyone. There’s a definite link between financial pressures and personal stress and for many people that means not being able to deal properly with the everyday matters of life such as friends and family. Unfortunately, having a good life insurance plan usually doesn’t mean it’ll help you live a better life while you’re here. That’s why it’s important to keep your quality of life in the upper reaches by dealing properly with stress levels.

The simple truth is that 44% of all employees in America are living from one paycheck to the next with 60% of all employees – even the more successful ones – worried about their financial future and whether or not they’ll continue to be able to make ends meet. It’s very important that you don’t allow financial worries to begin to take a toll on your personal health. Stress has a very subtle way of grinding away at a person a little more every day until only the raw nerve ends are showing. Increased stress levels can also mean increased health costs to people who have a hard time dealing with the stress brought on by uncertain financial times.

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This will probably come as a surprise to many of you, but life insurance plays a huge part in the assets value of nearly every bank doing business today. The banks buy so much cash value life insurance that this type of asset has earned its own name: “Bank Owned Life Insurance.” Bank-owned life insurance (or BOLI, for short) represents a huge chunk of the assets base of almost every major bank in America. Banks own so much of this type of asset that they can almost be considered as life insurance companies unto themselves.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) states that BOLI is an essential cornerstone of the nation’s banking and financial systems. At the end of 2007, over four thousand of the country’s banks owned BOLI, with the value well up over 120 billion dollars! Even more astounding is the fact that the total death benefit value to the bank is five times that amount!

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Life insurance companies are finding it hard to keep up with real estate investment losses and costly retirement contracts in the midst of the current economic hurricane. With the prospect of even more credit rating cuts for the balance of the year, companies are faced with little choice but to find more capital sources from an unforgiving marketplace.

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Most of us know enough to have auto insurance when we do any amount of driving in our car. And having homeowner insurance when you own your own home just makes perfect sense. Then why do many of us put such a low priority on getting any sort of life insurance – especially when we’re younger? The answer usually lies in what’s called ‘the probability factor’ and it keeps a lot of people away from getting the life insurance they should have. What it means is that most people – and especially when you’re talking about younger people – tend to believe that any sort of accident, even one causing death, will only happen to the other guy.

Because people are generally optimistic about their lives, the idea that any sort of accident could happen to them is usually the furthest thing from their mind. Death is what happens to old people, they think but of course, that’s not the case and in fact, many automobile accidents causing death happen to younger people every day.

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