Term only. Every unbiased financial advisor (anyone who doesn't sell them) I've ever read/heard says never buy permanent life insurance (whole life, variable life, etc). Remember--the purpose of insurance is to transfer risk that I can't take on. If I can't handle the risks of taking care of liabilities after 20,25, or 30 year terms(for me by the time I'm ~50), I haven't planned well.
Never allow someone to talk you into "a life ins policy is an investment." if those are intertwined, it costs you 18-20x more for the same coverage, and most go to commissions and fees. My FIL had a whole life policy "investment", and we recieved 50k at his unexpected relatively-young death (whiich covered some of his his debt)--all things considered (age, etc) we would have recieved nearly $1,000,000 if he would have paid the SAME monthly premium amount to a term policy.
Insurance is an expense, not an investment. Minimize the expense (buy only term policies), and maximize personal investments (long term stock mutual funds & real estate). I totally agree with Dave Ramsey on this one.
