life insurance annuity vs SGLI vs Roth IRA

law87, might be helpful for you to do a word search on "annuity" or "annuities" on the forum, they've been discussed here before. not a favorite topic around here, for good reason. Boghie posted a link yesterday to a site that has an article on pros and cons of the general subject.

Longevity Insurance Is Another Name for
 
This is FWIW about whole life policies and may not be directly related to your question. Whole life or as they seem to be called “life insurance annuity” now are a mixed bag and usually do not pay very well over the years.

About 45 years ago my parents bought a whole life policy ($10,000) on me. It transferred to me when I turned 21. Premium was $18.90 per month or $226.80 per year. Dividends were not paid at first. About 30 years ago I let an agent of the same company talk me in to buying a $100,000 whole life policy that the accumulated dividends on the $10,000 policy would pay for. It did. For about three years. Then a bill came for the newer policy for over $1000 since it had sucked all the value out of the old policy.

This was a lot of unexpected expense in the ‘80s. I worked it out as letting a life insurance policy expire was just something you never did. Now I pay $18.90 per month for the old policy and get about $50 per year in dividend which I apparently cannot roll back in to the policy and the newer one just keeps sucking up $1k whatever a year with no apparent increase in value.

Just saying, be wary of any life insurance offers as they usually only ever pay face value and earn nothing. I am not saying your “life insurance annuity” won’t give you some high return. Just read the fine print about where that return goes. Yeah, after you get old you can supposedly “cash them in” but usually you never get more than the face value it was when you bought it.

PO
 
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