Suppose there was a financial instrument with a track record stretching back 1,400 years; that was so solid it could survive the Great Depression intact; that earned untaxed interest at a competitive rate; that could be borrowed against at will regardless of credit conditions; and that could be used by individuals as well as major corporations and banks as a safe harbor during economic turmoil?

You’d call it a financial bunker for scary times, and you’d be talking about mutual whole life insurance.

Here are some quick points about mutual whole life:

• You Own The Bank - Investments are conservative and long-term; there’s no pressure like in the stock market
• Your Premium Payments Belong To You
• You Can Borrow Back Your Premium Payments
• Mutuals Offer Ironclad Guarantees: Few people realize that the insurance industry, dominated by mutuals, was the one sector that made it through the Great Depression without a disaster and with policyholders financially intact. The cash value and the death benefit are guaranteed and tightly regulated by the states. That means your cash value is there regardless of market conditions, and when you die your heirs will receive the full face value of the policy. While stockholder-owned insurance companies saw their values fall sharply last year (remember when we taxpayers bailed out AIG), the top mutually-owned insurers saw their book values remain stable or rise.
• Even Banks and Corporations Buy Mutual Policies: One of the lesser-known aspects of mutual insurance is that major corporations and banks buy policies on the lives of their employees and use the cash value to fund employee benefits and as a safe harbor for working capital. By some estimates Fortune 500 companies and large banks have policies covering some 5 million employees. Instead of doing what banks say—put your money in our CDs at low rates so we can turn around and lend your money out at a profit to us—do what banks do.