If it comes down to it, you may want to choose a lower
end face value amount just to provide your family with the ability to pay the funeral bills associated with your death.
As long as there is increasing mortality and level premiums, there will be cash
values, and while term insurance has cash
values small enough to be legally ignored (and therefore not exist from the consumer's perspective), a correctly priced whole life policy will always have cash
value build up to
face amount by the
end.