The Pros:
It's cheap. Term life is the most affordable variety of life insurance. Its reasonable rates allow people to buy policies with larger face values than they could otherwise afford. For example, a 45-year-old male nonsmoker could pick up a million-dollar, 30-year term policy for $2,600 a year. A whole life policy, also known as permanent insurance, will cost 2.5 to 4 times as much.

Click here for a glossary of life insurance terms

It's easy to buy. All you need to do is figure out how much you need — and how long you'll need it — and then shop around a bit to find a competitive rate.

It covers a temporary need. Remember, life insurance is meant to provide for your dependents. Later in life — after the kids are in college and you and your spouse have a generous retirement stash — you might not have any dependents. So while you might buy a policy when your first child is born (and you might increase it as you have more children), you may only need life insurance for 20 or 30 years.

The Cons:
It expires. There's a dark side to the expiration date of term insurance. If you find that at the end of that term you still need life insurance you're starting from scratch. The older you are, the tougher the term market is going to be to you: If you're not in good health, you might not be eligible for coverage at all.

If you outlive your policy, or cancel it at any time, you get nothing back. Assuming things go the way you and the insurance company plan, you'll still be alive and well when your term insurance policy comes to an end. This means you will have paid thousands of dollars (most likely tens of thousands) for a policy you didn't use. You won't get any refunds for your accomplishment, which makes some folks feel like they've wasted their money.

But think of it this way:
If you invested on your own the savings you enjoyed over the years by going with cheaper term insurance rather than whole life, you almost surely came out significantly ahead.