Permanent life insurance

Well, initially my goal was to protect my family in case I die. But once I learned about permanent life insurance, I thought why not get some sort of return while at the same time protecting them. It seems to be like buying vs renting, no? But if it were that easy, why would anyone get term life insurance? I'm assuming premiums are a lot higher (I haven't gotten any numbers yet)?

The premiums are going to be a lot higher. Get your quotes, and then run some numbers on what your return would be like if you got term and invested the difference in premiums into a mutual fund.