Prudential Variable Life Insurance - Validation of bad investment+ Best next ste

[jsmith161671]

I'm a 35M (Married with 2 children) and single source of household income who about 7 years ago jumped onto a variable life insurance policy through Prudential. I'm a high income individual and was starting a family at the time, so kind of just jumped onto it, but now as I've settled into life a bit more I've realized it is likely not a worthy investment. Married with 2 children.

I'd like some general guidance from non-partisan folks here on what my best path forward is given my "sunk" investment thus far, but the ongoing charge.

What general details would you recommend me posting to get the type of feedback I'm looking for. Here's what I have so far and can edit in more:

Death Benefit: $1M

Monthly Premium: $500

Monthly Admin & Trans Charges: $130 (this is not necessarily CLEARLY called out but I see it on the annual statements)

My "Contract Fund" has about $25k in it

~$9k in surrender charge

Cash Value~ $16k after surrender charge

I'm trying to find out when there is no longer a surrender charge, but in the documents I can cleanly find on their website I can't find it. Will continue to look.

Any advice on validation that this is a horrible investment policy (I believe term is way cheaper to just get life insurance, and the additional money I'm putting is better served via standard investment vehicles) as well as advice on best practice to get out of policy (wait until surrender period is up, etc.) is appreciated.

[GilesMM]

Looks horrible. Get out. But term life insurance if you need it.

[Dee18]

When deciding what to do with an investment, sometimes it helps to just make it a math problem. 
-Call the company and find out the schedule for surrender charges--what will it be next year, in 5 years, etc.
-Right now you know it is $9,000.  It is okay to cash in an investment with a sunk cost.  If it would be 10 more years before the surrender charge is zero, and that is your goal, calculate the expected value of what you would get cashing the insurance policy in then vs what you would get if you cash in now and invest the $16,000 for the next 10 years.  Of course you can never know what the market will do, but you can make educated guesses. And right now you can still get 4% on a guaranteed CD.

I would probably go ahead and cash it in, just to be able to quit thinking about it.  Also of course consider if you already have employer provided insurance.  The most important insurance for you to have is probably disability.  If you die your spouse will receive SS for each child until age 18.

[mistymoney]

since you are sole support for the family, definitely get the terms policy in place and active before cancelling this one.

Might also help with the hard sell to keep, and can say - I've already replaced this policy.

but yes - this one is horrible.