"Index Funds vs. Variable Life Insurance" ... "I am new to the FI community"
OP - Just so you know, those statements go together. You would only put those two investments on a par if someone else was making your financial decisions for you - in their own best interest. Has your trusted adviser ever volunteered how much of your money goes into his pocket when you purchase variable life insurance?
I'm very skeptical of your claim that you can "for free" withdraw money from your variable life insurance policy. Did you get that in writing? Since there's no cost, have you tried it?
I'd like you to compare two things. First, search for "VTI", which is Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF. It holds a slice of the U.S. stock market, and you can view it's performance on several websites (vanguard, morningstar, Yahoo finance, Google Finance, ...). On each website, you'll see VTI's returns for the past 5 years have been over 12%. A year.
Now look at your adviser's recommendation. While 12%/year is rather good, and not expected every year, you would certainly agree it beats 4%. Why is your adviser, who pockets some of the money from a variable life insurance policy, recommending an investment that has done about -8% than the total stock market each year?
I'd suggest all you new money go towards index funds that you pick and control. Funds you can view on multiple third party websites, and can sell whenever you choose. None of that is true of your current adviser. I hope your plan to retire doesn't depend on the variable life insurance as an investment, as it's a very poor vehicle for investing.
I'd suggest you skip the insurance middle man, and buy the market. Vanguard, Schwab and Fidelity all offer S&P 500 index funds with low annual costs.