Supplemental life insurance is additional coverage, increasing the dollar amount paid out in the event of your death. A rider is an added benefit that can be added to your life insurance to cover specific situations such as long-term care, accidental death, etc. "There are a lot of insurance riders available to choose from. Those riders are not free," says Yao. "An insurance rider related to the supplemental life is the guaranteed insurability rider which allows you to increase the size of your death benefit at specific life milestones."