One agent told me that it talks, it walks, it dances, and if it could move, it would go out and start your car on cold winter mornings. I mentioned to another agent that universal life is nothing more than a high priced annual renewable term. She called me a name. I said get one of your policies (she did), take it out of the plastic insert and place it open on your desk (she did), without moving the police in any way, shape, or form take a look at the very bottom of the policy (first page) (she did). She said 'this is impossible. I work for a good company'. The bottom of the page reads THIS IS AN ANNUAL RENEWABLE TERM PRODUCT. She didn't believe that the company would lie to her.
Read the second piece of paper in a universal life. You can see the decreasing value of the insurance. I carefully researched, read, and scrutinized 5 universal life's from 5 different companies, using a graph. I determined that these policies are designed to be thrown away, for lack of a better word, at about 5 to 7 years down the road. Be careful with the pitch. It's practiced for hours on end by the agent. Does he talk about savings? Notice that is not stapled to the policy. Does he talk about investments? Notice that that is also not stapled to the policy. Ask him to leave his doodlings and notes, all the pieces of paper with numbers, so that you can review later. Notice that he or she won't do that either. Turn your radio on - the song an dance is coming up. Authors on this subject: Venita Van Caspel, Norman Dacey, Jane Bryant Quinn, and the list goes on. Arm yourself with knowledge.
------------------------------------They will talk about you having money to retire - which is false. A universal life insurance plan will not give you enough money to retire, it barely grows with inflation.
They will talk about your ability to borrow against your life insurance plan if you ever need the money, you can do the same thing with a 401K plan (not that I would ever suggest borrowing money from either, you lose interest and growth).
My take on whole life is that you should not do it. Read David Bach's book "Smart couples finish rich" to enlighten yourself financially. Before you think about investing in whole life (universal life), you should be maxed out in every other investment inlcuding your 401K, IRAs, etc. Whole life should be your last option for investment.
You are better off getting a term life policy and investing the difference (into an IRA) of what you would have paid for whole life.