Unlike Universal Life, guaranteed values in Whole Life are the bedrock upon which all of the non-guaranteed values are built. You can't understand why a Whole Life product does what it does without first looking at its guarantees. As it turns out, although the formula for determining guarantees is straightforward, companies have enough discretion in the inputs to the formula that products can offer distinctly different guaranteed values over time, even after accounting for the fact that products have different prices.