Return of Premium life insurance
In the early eighties when term life insurance was in it's simplest form and structure, you would often here agent tell prospects that with term, "you pay all that money and get nothing at the end". Of course that was partly their inability to understand the time value of money, and partly so they could set the prospect up to buy the more profitable (to the agent) Universal or Whole life policy.
Now, even if you wish to ignore the time value of money, or the fundamental difference between capital gains and income, there is one exception to this rule: the return-of-premium term policy. With these policies, if you keep the policy in force for the entire term, say 20 years, the insurance company will refund the premium payments you made over that 20-year period.
So if the insured dies during the term of the life insurance policy, the beneficiaries get the death benefit. And if the insured lives for the entire term of the policy, all the premiums are returned to back to him or her. Premiums are prorated, of course, if you cancel the policy before the term is over. But if you do the math, you will find that you may have to earn a decent interest rate if you think you can purchase a less expensive term life policy and invest the difference to beat this contract.
But if you think you will most likely be dropping the return-of-premium policy before most of the term has expired, you may want to skip this route. Of course, you can never say that you will never get back your money with term again, can you?
These return of premium policies work best at younger ages because the insurance company has more time to invest your money and the cost of the insurance is less. It is probably not the best deal for a 55 year old to buy a 10 year ROP term life policy.