just about 90% of people on yahoo answers continually bash whole life insurance and i cant understand why. yes it is considerably more expensive and it might not be right for everyone but have any of you considered the benefits that whole life can bring? think about those with a pension. most people who have one will always take the joint and survivor option so that if they die their spouse can still recieve payments. if they were to take the high payment option and die the next day after their first check, their spouse gets nothing. thats why almost everyone takes the joint and survivor option and gives up a big chunk of their monthly pension. if you had a whole life policy, you could take the high option and not worry about their spouse being financially taken care of because they are guaranteed the whole life death benefit. it doesnt expire like term.
Additional Details
To BAL:

your statement:
"You are buying a contract to pay a fixed benefit which you hope will not pay off until 30 or more years down the road. Which means that is value is likely going to be worth much less in constant dollar terms than the face of the policy today."

Yea that is true with term life but not with traditional whole life. whole life allows you to use your dividends to buy paid up additions which is buying extra death benefit. a 1,000,000 policy bought today on a 30 year old will have an approximate death benefit of 2,038,464 at age 64. this was based on an illustration i have which assumes all dividends were paid on the 2007 scale. we all know dividends will change so that number i quoted could be a bit higher or a bit lower than i said. but anyway, that is another benefit of whole life. the death benefit can keep up with inflation much better than term because term's death benefit doesnt change over the 30 year period. whole life can almost double.