Also, insurance companies often front-load the premium payments relative to actuarial risk: at first you pay more than the actuarially fair amount, and less later. The insurance companies know that many people will eventually let the coverage drop due to financial trouble, error, etc so there is a cross-subsidy to those who make use of the whole policy (similar to the way one can get free loans from credit card companies by always paying the monthly bill, which the companies accept as a cost of acquiring customers who will take out high-interest balances).

This makes life insurance more desirable for someone unusually likely to keep the coverage for its whole term, and less so for the typical person.