The safest permanent life insurance purchase?

What insurance can you buy that the rates will not increase as you get older, will pay a death benefit that will never decrease, and will have cash that you can borrow if you get into financial straits?

If your answer was "guaranteed whole life," give yourself a gold star.

Guaranteed whole life is the most trouble free life insurance you can buy, and it is very reasonably priced if you purchase it when you are young. The premium will never increase, and the benefit will never decrease. It doesn't get any simpler.

Whole life insurance does get more expensive, the longer you wait to buy it. Furthermore, starting young may give you additional options such as limited pay, spouse or children's riders, accelerated death benefit, accident indemnity and other possibilities. The following points should be kept in mind when purchasing guaranteed whole life.

• Make sure the agent is talking about guaranteed whole life with a level premium and level benefit. In the past, there have been whole life insurance policies that are recalculated periodically.
  
  
• If you take out the policy when you are young, a 10 or 20 pay may be an option. This means your policy can be paid up after 10 or 20 years. Your premium will, of course, be higher, but if you are young and employed, it may still be affordable.
  
  
• The accelerated death benefit rider (free with some companies) will allow you to get half the face value in cash should you be diagnosed with a terminal illness.
  
  
• Accidental death indemnity (sometimes as much as double the original face value and likewise free on certain policies) gives your beneficiary additional cash if you were to die in an accident.
  
  
• All companies have a 2 year contestability privilege (this applies to any policy except a graded benefit). In other words if you fail to disclose certain illnesses, or if you die as an act of war, suicide or a crime during the first two years, the company will return your premium but will not pay the face value.
  
  
• Certain riders, such as children's, spouse and disability or accident riders are usually term and expire at the end of 20 years or when you reach a specified age.
  
  
• Many companies have an option called "automatic premium loans" which will place a loan against a policy should you miss a premium payment. This prevents accidental lapse.
  
  
• Life insurance proceeds are tax free and generally avoid probate. However, if your beneficiary dies before you do, be sure to make a change or your benefit will be paid into your estate and then tied up in probate.
  
  
• Your beneficiary needs to be a person with an insurable interest as defined by law, such as a family member, relative or business partner. However, once the insurance is in force, you can change the beneficiary to any one you wish.
  
  
• If your policy does lapse, you will have certain reinstatement rights, dependent on the terms in your policy. You will have to pay back premium plus interest and may have to prove insurability to reinstate your policy, but you will generally avoid an attained age increase.

Insurance is a complicated topic for most people. Guaranteed whole life, while not always cheap, is the simplest, and arguably the best, form of permanent life insurance.