Introduction to Variable and Universal Life Insurance

Once upon a time, there was term life insurance, which paid only in exchange for a premium, and whole life insurance, which offered a death benefit plus accumulating cash value available for your use—if you didn’t die first. But inflation and soaring interest rates in the 1970s, in addition to the rigid structure of whole life, caused many to see whole life as a poor "investment." To make cash value life insurance more interesting to customers, insurance companies invented variable and universal life policies.