Life Insurance Naysayers - How Do You Deal With Them?

[Mindy Zimmerman]

I know several BPers use some form of permanent life insurance to help their investing.  I'm just looking into it and getting a lot of negative feedback from non-investors.

My brother has said things along the lines of he and his wife never hearing anything good about whole life insurance; that I'm single with no kids so I don't even have a reason to get life insurance, etc.  My friend then tells me that she inherited the policy her father got on her 30 years ago and it was only worth $100.  That sounds really shady to me, but shady perfectly describes her father so I suspect he did something underhanded with that policy to ruin it.  Everyone thinks term life is the best option, while I think that it is the real scam.  On and on....

I'm working with an advisor/agent who works extensively with people who want high cash value policies to use for their business.  She knows that I'm interested in real estate investing and plan to take out loans against my policy.

I guess I'm just looking for some reassurance that I'm not making a huge mistake.  How do you handle the naysayers?  I know they're genuinely concerned and don't want to see me get burned.  I feel like any response I have for them sounds like I drank the kool-aid and why wouldn't I want to hand over my life savings to this nice religious conman over here.

Thanks for any feedback and discussion!