Difference Between Participating and Non-Participating Whole Life Insurance?

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PARTICIPATING AND NON-PARTICIPATING WHOLE LIFE INSURANCE

Participating policies are life insurance policies that pay dividends, where dividends enable you (the policyholders) to participate in the insurance company's favorable experiences (such as higher than expected investment returns or lower than expected operation.)
Non-participating policies, historically belong to the stock companies where the company's favorable expenses were paid to the stock holders, rather than the people who own policies within the insurance company.

Even though the participating policies were mostly offered by the the mutual insurance companies, due to consumer appeals to receive dividends, stock companies also started offering participating policies.

You should keep in mind that the dividends are not guaranteed and it is illegal for insurance agents to make future projections (where the participating policies also tend to have little higher premiums.)