What Is Whole Or Universal Life Insurance? 
Whole life and universal life are the dominant permanent insurance plans . The whole life plan provides a level death benefit for life in exchange for a level premium deposit . The universal life removes the guarantees and provides flexibility in premium payment and even death benefit . The key issue is that the design for both plans is to pay a death benefit . In order to do this they must accumulate cash that is more than necessary to pay immediate death claims . This is because in the future , death claims will far exceed the premiums . 