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The oldest argument in insurance, settled with your quotes.
The term-vs-whole-life debate is usually argued with slogans. The honest test is arithmetic: both sides carry the same death benefit for the same window, the premium difference gets invested, and at the end you compare what each side holds against what each side paid. This calculator runs that comparison with your actual quotes — including the whole-life policy's illustrated cash surrender value, which is the number agents show least eagerly.
Anyone sitting across from an insurance agent uses this to turn the oldest sales argument in the industry into arithmetic with their own two quotes — the end-position comparison (what you hold minus what you paid) is the framing no illustration ever leads with. Fee-only planners use it to show clients why the "permanent" pitch only wins for permanent needs.
With typical quotes — $45/month term vs $450/month whole life for $1M over 20 years — the $405 monthly difference invested at 7% grows to roughly $211,000 while term premiums total $10,800. Whole life over the same window costs $108,000 in premiums, and 20-year cash surrender values on recent policies are commonly well under premiums paid. The gap between the two end positions is usually six figures in BTID's favor.
When the need is permanent rather than temporary: estate liquidity for taxable estates, a lifelong dependent who will outlive you, burial and final expenses guaranteed to age 100+, or business buy-sell funding. For those needs the "difference" never gets invested for 30 years anyway — the insurance itself is the point. For income replacement during the mortgage-and-kids window, term is the consensus tool among fee-only planners.
Because whole life illustrations show a "cash value" that builds slowly — policyholders who surrender in the first 10–20 years routinely get back less than they paid in, sometimes much less. Without that illustrated number, the comparison defaults to pretending premiums come back, which they do not. Ask the agent for the guaranteed and illustrated cash surrender value at your term-end year and enter it here.