Universal Life Insurance Policies

The freedom to adjust your premium payments.

Your life is always changing, and this type of policy could allow you to change your premium payments and benefit amount according to your needs.

The amount and timing of your payments will directly affect your policy's cash value as well as your ability to maintain coverage in the future. Your policy's cash value will increase after if you pay more premium in the early years and you choose to make regular payments.

Cash value builds over time (and is tax-deferred).

Universal life insurance builds a cash value over the life of the policy. As an added bonus, this cash value grows tax-deferred. The policy’s cash value may be accessed or withdrawn (e.g., for a child’s college tuition, home renovations, retirement living expenses, etc.), but doing this may impact the final value of the policy’s benefits. Talk to your tax advisor before making any decisions.

Plan your legacy.

Want to make sure the benefits of your policy go where they’ll have a lasting impact for your family or favorite charities? Buying universal life insurance can be a useful part of your estate-planning process, even when it comes to estate taxes. Your attorney can advise on estate-planning matters.

Variable Universal Life Insurance.

This type of universal life insurance has an investment component, allowing you to invest the cash value of the account into sub-accounts available with the policy. These sub-accounts are similar to mutual funds.

A Variable Universal Life (VUL) policy is considered both life insurance and a security and is sold with a prospectus. Premium and death benefit types are flexible. It’s crediting rate is based on the performance of the underlying investment options provided in the policy. There is no guaranteed interest rate. This type of policy may lapse due to low or negative performance of the underlying investment options, inadequate funding, and increasing cost of insurance rates. See your policy prospectus for more information.

Before purchasing a variable universal life insurance policy, you should carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the policy and its underlying investment choices. For this and other information, obtain the prospectus for the policy and the prospectuses (or summary prospectuses, if available) for its underlying investment choices from your registered representative. Please read the prospectuses carefully before investing or sending money.

The cost and availability of life insurance depend on factors such as age, health, and the type and amount of insurance purchased. Before implementing a strategy involving life insurance, it would be prudent to make sure that you are insurable by having the policy approved. As with most financial decisions, there are expenses associated with the purchase of life insurance. Policies commonly have mortality and expense charges. In addition, if a policy is surrendered prematurely, there may be surrender charges and income tax implications. The guarantees provided by the insurance company are contingent on the claims-paying ability of the issuing company.