My point is that insurance bears single company risk. What happens when your insurance company goes bankrupt? Do you lose 100% of the value of your insurance? For example, what of GICs, Term Life, Whole Life, etc. Is their value insured by the Feds in some way?
I prefer explicitly known risk. I have mostly Index funds at Vanguard. I know I risk Vanguard going out of business, but their ability to steal the underlying assets is minimal to non-existent. So, I primarily have Market Risk, a known one that I can control. I can step away from Market Risk by going to CDs, Bonds, MMFs, gold and my checking account.
Insurance purveyors who suppose they are offering an investment, in my experience, are usually A) Frauds, B) Extremely Misleading, or C) Have such convoluted and long-term tax-based advantages that a really smart guy wouldn't dare enter that market without a PhD dissertation to back him up. For example, I have studied Annuities many times over the years, and while they appear to offer some limited marginal tax benefits, their restrictions, costs and opacity always put me off.
As Individual Investors go, I'm quite well studied. I believe in the Efficient Market Hypothesis for most stock investment categories. I know that portfolio allocation and cost minimization are the keys to long term success. I have been recently taught about Black Swans, and am sufficiently chastized that I will slowly take that into account in portfolio construction.
So, thank you very much, I will stay largely in the Stock Market, where my returns have and will continue to exceed (I'm quite sure) virtually any other investment class over my investment time horizon.
Vanguard is as good as you can get in the market as far as I remember from my Bob Brinker info.
Well you just accused me and my wife and three major insurance companies of being a frauds. And our education and planning process of being too complex for you to understand. No wonder you're building your retirement on the stock market. I guess we must have some geniuses for clients.
Should I just leave before the feds knock on the door?
I used to be like you until I did my research and found something safer with a better rate of return and more liquid.
I should have read your last statement first. No use wasting time, if you don't want to know the answer to tour questions and accusations. Good luck.