Dear Dave, I have a question about self-banking with whole term life insurance. The way I understand it, you can accrue a cash balance, borrow against it, and then pay interest to yourself. Is this worth it, or should I stay away from it and continue using a bank? Kunal Dear Kunal, Actually, it’s a whole life policy, not a term policy. And it’s an absolute scam. Basically, with whole life you pay about 20 times more for the same amount of insurance that you would with a term policy. The extra money goes into a savings account, and you earn next to nothing on it, even after you finally start to build it up. One of the ways they’re pitching it now is the self-banking concept, where you can use your own money. It’s nothing magical or anything, because with a regular checking account you use your own money. …