A caller named Shelley wrote into Suze Orman’s Women & Money podcast with numbers that speak for themselves. She had paid roughly $18,000 in premiums over 30 years on a whole life insurance policy. The fund value sat at only $6,500. Orman’s reaction, delivered twice for emphasis: “Welcome to the world of whole life insurance.”
The gap between what went in and what was there is the entry point for a financial concept every holder of a cash value policy should understand: the annual statement tells you exactly where your money is going, and most people never open it.
The Policy on Paper
Shelley and her then husband took the policy out in 1995. After their divorce she assumed it, and her ex remains the beneficiary. The death benefit is $100,000. The quarterly premium is $158.
The 2025 annual statement is where the mechanics show up. Cost of insurance for the year: $1,120. Expense charges: $109. Interest credited to the cash value: $266. Those three lines explain why a policy funded steadily for three decades has a fund value that looks the way it does. The insurance charge and the expense charge come out. The credited interest goes in. What is left over is the cash value.
Shelley also mentioned context that matters. Her self-managed Fidelity account had just crossed $1 million. She is a capable investor asking whether this specific product still earns its keep.
Orman’s Verdict, in Her Own Words
Orman did not hedge. “Get rid of it. Just get rid of it. It makes absolutely no sense. If it wasn’t part of your divorce decree where you had to keep an insurance policy on yourself, get rid of it. As long as you know you are healthy, whole life insurance is always a waste of money. I’ve never seen one example where it is not a waste of money.”
She said the product sits at the top of her “top 10 hate list.” That is her stated position on the show, delivered in her own absolute terms.
The Two Carve-Outs She Named
Orman herself flagged two conditions where her advice would change. The first is a legal one. If the divorce decree requires Shelley to keep insurance on herself, the policy stays in force in some form. Orman’s suggestion in that case: “Maybe you can switch it to a term life insurance or just pay them out.”
The second is health. “If you are still healthy, if things are good, can you just do me a favor and get rid of it?” The exception she named was terminal illness. Her verdict, in other words, is conditional. It assumes the policyholder is healthy and unencumbered by court order.
The Opportunity Cost Orman Cited
The redirect matters as much as the exit. Orman told Shelley to take the freed-up premium and “invest it in your own Roth or something else.”
Orman said that $158 quarterly over 30 years, if it had been invested, would come to roughly $62,000. That figure is hers, offered on the show to frame the opportunity cost against the $6,500 fund value the policy actually produced.
For readers running a similar comparison at home, the mechanic is straightforward. A cash value policy pays for insurance and expenses every year and credits a return on what is left. A separate term policy plus a separate invested account splits those functions apart, and each line item is visible.
The Beneficiary Joke
Orman closed the segment with humor about the arrangement. Because Shelley’s ex is still the beneficiary, Orman offered a parting line: “Maybe take your ex out to dinner and tell him, I’m not insured anymore, so go for it yourself, boyfriend.” If he wants the coverage, he can buy his own.
What to Actually Do With Your Statement
The practical takeaway from the call is smaller and more useful than a directive to cancel anything. Pull the most recent annual statement on any cash value policy you own and find three lines: the cost of insurance, the expense charges, and the interest or dividends credited. Those numbers tell you what the product is doing for the money you put in.
Compare that against what a term policy for the same death benefit would run, and what the difference in premium could earn in a Roth IRA or a taxable brokerage account. Context matters here too. With the average credit card APR at 20.94%, any dollar sitting idle inside a low-yielding policy is a dollar not paying down debt that costs far more.
The core lesson from Shelley’s call is that the annual statement is the scoreboard.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks