Now for the big guy… Permanent Life insurance. There are several types a few being Whole Life, Universal Life, etc….  Here is the Wikipedia definition. I like it the best as it is simple and clear. Permanent life insurance is a form of life insurance such as whole life or endowment, where the policy is for the life of the insured, the payout is assured at the end of the policy (assuming the policy is kept current) and the policy accrues cash value.

This is compared with Term life insurance where insurance is purchased for a specified period (typically a year, or for level periods such as 5, 10, 15, 20 even 25 and 30 years) where a death benefit is only paid to the beneficiary if the insured dies during the specified period.

Permanent life insurance originally was offered as a fixed premium fixed return product known as whole life insurance also known as cash surrender life insurance. This offered consumers guaranteed cash value accumulation and a consistent premium. Consumers later wanted more flexibility which was offered in the form of universal life insurance. Universal life insurance allows consumers flexibility in when premiums are to be paid and the amount that they would be. Universal life policies also allowed consumers to permanently withdraw cash from the policy without the interest associated with the loan provisions in whole life policies. Universal life policies retained the fixed investment performance of whole life policies.  

 Payout likelihood

Because permanent life insurance programs are designed to be permanent and pay a death benefit, the cost of insurance is considerably higher than term insurance. Term insurance is referred to as pure death benefit with no cash accumulation vehicle tied to it. Because of this, permanent premiums remain 8 to 10 times more expensive than term premiums for the same coverage.^{[citation needed]} Most people are drawn to term insurance for the low cost and the ability to invest the difference in separate financial products. Doing so has a potential drawback in some cases because all term policies eventually expire and the client would then have to pay a higher premium based on his attained age or he may not be able to qualify for a new policy at that point. In these situations, money earned from investments may not measure up to the coverage the policy would have provided.^{[isputed_statement" title="Wikipediaisputed statement">dubious – ermanent_life_insurance#Dubious" title="Talkermanent life insurance">discuss]}