Universal life insurance is a permanent life insurance policy that provides flexible premium options along with a savings component. Universal life also offers a variety of savings investment options to fit your financial goals.
How Does Universal Life Insurance Work?
As a permanent life insurance policy, universal life offers guaranteed, lifelong benefits. Most universal life insurance offer a flexible premium payment option. With a universal policy, you may have the power to adjust your premiums or death benefits. In some cases, you may even be able to skip a premium payment with a universal policy with no fear of cancellation.
Just like whole life insurance, universal life has a savings component known as the “cash value”. Premiums paid go towards both the cost of insurance as well as the cash value. The flexibility of universal life insurance allows you to essentially shift funds between the insurance and the cash value components. If you’ve accrued enough cash value, for example, you may be able to pay for the cost of insurance itself.
Cash value can also be withdrawn or borrowed against.
Universal life offers a variety of savings options, depending on your appetite for risk and investment:
- Fixed universal life: cash value earns a fixed interest rate
- Indexed universal life: interest tied to the performance of an index, such as S&P 500
- Variable universal life: invest cash value into mutual funds