I think "tranquility" has some good knowledge there. Like tranquility said, the comissions that  agents make is huge, in some cases 200% of your first year premiums and may be 5-10% of your second year premiums. So, obviously it's in their best interest to get you to buy their products.

I mean the first question I would ask myself is: Why do I need this product? Am I worried more about my retirement or more worried that I may not get to retire ( i.e. to go to god early)? How many kids do I plan to have? If you are young and healthy and in the U.S., then you will definitely have to worry about the retirement, may be not this early but at some point in time.

Personally, I don't see the need to buy one of those products. May be that scenario will change later, who knows. But I would rather look into annuities, which pay a fixed income, for a term or till death, after retirement so that I have a stable income in the latter part of life. Then you couple that with 401K, IRA, Pension, Social Security--then I think you can have a pretty decent retirement.