What You Need To Know About Universal Life Insurance

A lot of people get quite confused when it comes to the different types of life insurance. For many people, universal life insurance is quite confusing. If you are one of those people who are not really very familiar about universal life insurance, here are a few things that you should know about this type of insurance.

What Is Universal Life Insurance?

Simply put, a universal life insurance is a life insurance that has a cash value. In other words, aside from providing you with life insurance the universal life insurance also doubles as a kind of savings program for you. How can this be? When you get a universal life insurance policy, you pay premium payments which are above the cost of the policy. The excess payments that you made will be credited to the cash value of the policy. Every month, the cash value of your policy earns interest. Who determines the interest rate on your cash value? The insurer determines the interest rate on the cash value. Usually, the insurer will base the interest rate on the financial index. Since this type of life insurance earns interest, this can be a good investment for people who want their money to grow over time.

A variation of the regular universal life coverage is the variable universal life insurance policy (VUL) which allows the cash value to grow even bigger. The VUL actually allows the cash value of the policy to be channeled to a separate account. The separate account functions just like a mutual fund account which invests your money in stocks and bonds. However, the catch here is that once your money is invested in stocks or bonds, it will now be opened to risks. Note that prices of stocks and bonds can be quite volatile so there is a possibility that the value of your investment will diminish if the investment company that handles your transaction make bad decisions. However, the good news is that if the company that is handling your investment make good investment decisions, you will most likely earn a considerable amount of money.

Is Universal Life Insurance Expensive?

Since you are required to pay more than the cost of your insurance policy when you get a universal life insurance, this type of insurance will come out a little bit more expensive compared to other types of insurance policies. However, if you want to save some money on the side, getting a universal life insurance is really a good option for you.