Term vs whole life insurance: what's the real answer for physicians?

A fast starting point: take your income times 10, add your debts, and subtract your investments. An attending earning $350,000 with a $500,000 mortgage, $150,000 of student loans, and $400,000 invested would need about $3.5 million plus $650,000 minus $400,000, or $3.75 million. Round up to $4 million and pick a term long enough to get the kids through school and your portfolio to the point it can replace you.

Consider laddering: instead of one $4 million 30 year policy, buy a $2 million 30 year policy plus a $2 million 20 year policy. It saves premium because the shorter policy costs less per year, and it matches your real timeline. Early on you need maximum coverage with young kids and a big mortgage. Twenty years later the kids are grown, the mortgage is smaller, and your portfolio does more of the work. Laddering lets policies expire as your net worth rises to the point you can self insure.

Get real quotes for your age, health, and state, because prices vary a lot. For illustration only, say a healthy 32 year old physician is quoted $700 a year for $1 million of 20 year term and $11,000 a year for $1 million of whole life. The difference is $10,300 a year.

Invest that $10,300 every year for 20 years at an illustrative 6% return and you'd have about $379,000. Now ask the whole life agent for the policy illustration and look at the guaranteed cash value in year 20, not the projected one. That comparison, guaranteed cash value against the invested difference, is the honest test.

From an independent broker or quote service that shows you several carriers side by side, not an agent who represents one company. Check that the carrier has a strong financial strength rating from an independent rating agency. Look for a level premium for the whole term. Skip the conversion rider. It sounds like free optionality, the right to convert to permanent insurance later without new underwriting, but in practice it is a sales tool. Agents use the conversion window as the pitch to move you into whole life years later, which is the product you already decided against. The rider adds cost to your term premium, small but real, and for 99.99% of physicians it never pays off. If your situation ever became one of the rare exceptions that needs permanent coverage, you would buy it then, not through a rider.

Extremely rare, but yes for very few reasons. A household whose estate will clearly exceed the federal estate tax exemption, $15 million per person for 2026 (IRS, Estate Tax), may use permanent coverage to pay the tax bill. A dependent with a lifelong disability can create a permanent need. Business buy sell agreements sometimes call for it. These are planning decisions for an estate attorney and a fee only planner, not something to buy from a pitch. If this isn't your situation, then the answer is term insurance.

How long should my term policy be?

Long enough to cover the years until your youngest is independent and your investments could replace your income. For many new attendings that's 20 to 30 years. Some split coverage into two policies of different lengths.

Does a stay at home spouse need life insurance?

Often yes. Replacing childcare and household work costs real money, and that's the number to insure.

Should I buy disability insurance before life insurance?

For most physicians, disability comes first. A disability stops your income while you're still alive to need it, so it gets addressed before life insurance. Both matter once someone depends on you.