I totally agree and I have a life insurance policy through my work, plus an additional one I pay for. Not 1m dollar policy, but decent and cheap (i'm a smoker).

I totally agree and I have a life insurance policy through my work, plus an additional one I pay for. Not 1m dollar policy, but decent and cheap (i'm a smoker). However, my qualm with the article is that it talks about this as passing down wealth. I dont consider life insurance 'wealth'. Its a safety net that nobody should look forward to, but unfortunately a lot of people do. My wife has a wealthy grandmother and every one of her children are all drooling at the moment she passes away. I can't stand all the end of life bickering that goes on and the way I read this article sounds like it would perpetuate that more. From seeing how rabid her family gets about money, I would rather be poor than deal with all the greed involved with such large policies. I believe that a policy large enough to pay off the deceased's debt and leave some extra money to help support the family is fine, but way overshooting for too large of a policy is asking for trouble. Backstabbing, lawsuits, etc. Sorry for the rant. I just regularly hear my wife talk about all the selfishness her aunts and uncles display constantly and I cant stand it.