When Did Universal Life Insurance Start? 
A component of a whole life policy is an accumulation of funds to insure that the policy will pay the face amount throughout the lifetime of the insured and yet the premium will remain level . In the 1960s there was unrest as the stock market surged people thought they could do better managing those funds than the insurance company could , thus the Universal life policy was designed . It gave greater flexibility and a separate fund to develop cash value . None of this was possible before wide spread use of computers . Today there are life insurance policies where the individual can select funding vehicles . 