Look, this is just a general prejudice. Whole life is generally not worth it. For your specific circumstance, I would talk to a financial advisor that you trust.
I think you should keep the money you would spend in whole life premiums, maintain the term life, and invest the rest with your investments. That should be a diversified portfolio, including some CDs or bonds, but also you should own stocks or stock funds, as well. Those will have higher returns, over time.
But diversity is the key. While the economy hasn’t been doing well, stocks have does well in the last couple of years. Maybe that has stopped and maybe it hasn’t. The point with stocks is to buy and hold, preferably for forty years. We just sold a bit because our daughter is about to go to college, and because we need the cash, since my wife is not working. But that’s our post-tax investments. We aren’t and won’t touch the pre-tax investments, since we don’t want to pay the penalties, and they continue to grow our net worth, which is good to see, since our expenses are greater than my income. But we should be fine. We’ve been working for many years, and had our kids late.
Both of us have life and disability insurance. It’s always a little weird carrying disability when you aren’t working, but, assuming you go back to work, it seems like it could be worth it, and thus you maintain the low rates.
But if you have low life insurance rates, would those low rates carry over into whole life? Because perhaps you could gain significant savings cheaply that way. You have to analyze your situation, and not ask for general advice. The devil is in the details.