Universal Life Insurance

Universal Life Insurance is a flexible-premium, adjustable benefit life insurance policy that accumulates account value. The flexibility of this policy allows you to change the amount of insurance as your needs for insurance change. Some changes require underwriting approval.

As with all life insurance, the main purpose for buying a Universal Life insurance policy to provide protection in the event of ones death. The benefits to Universal Life Insurance are listed below.

Flexibility - You decide how much life insurance you need and subject to certain requirements and limitations, you can adjust the death benefit and premium payments to fit your changing needs.

Tax-Deferred account value growth -Your policy's account value earns interest at the company's current interest rate, tax deferred. There is usually a guaranteed interest rate percentage.

The primary difference between whole life insurance and universal life insurance is that UL policies shift some of the risk for maintaining the death benefit to the insured. In a whole life policy, as long as every premium payment is made, the death benefit is guaranteed to be paid if the insured dies. In a UL the policy will lapse (the death benefit will no longer be in force) if the cash value or premium payments are not enough to cover the cost of insurance. To make their policies more attractive insurers often add guarantees, where if certain premium payments are made for a given period, the policy will remain in force even if the cash value drops to zero.