Free Educational Tool
Compare life insurance types, side by side
"Life insurance" covers five quite different products. The biggest difference is simple: term is pure protection, while the permanent types bundle protection with a cash-value component in different ways. This tool makes those structural differences visible. Educational only — not a quote or a recommendation.
Select a type to see what a premium dollar actually buys. The split between protection (the cost of the death benefit), cash value (the savings/accumulation component), and fees is the clearest way to understand what makes each type different.
The dimensions that actually drive the decision. Cost and risk are shown relative to the others, not as dollar figures — your real numbers depend on age, health, and design.
Cost meter = relative premium for the same death benefit. Risk meter = how much investment risk you carry (versus the insurer). Neither is "good" or "bad" on its own — they're trade-offs.
Answer a few questions and the tool will highlight which type(s) tend to fit. This is a starting point for a conversation, not a recommendation — your actual situation has details a few questions can't capture.
1. How long do you need the coverage?
2. Is this purely about protection, or also about building cash value?
3. How much investment risk are you comfortable carrying yourself?
Where this points
This is educational guidance, not a recommendation. The right answer depends on your full financial picture — which is exactly the kind of thing worth talking through with an advisor who has no quota and no captive product to push.
Go Deeper
Curious how indexed universal life actually credits interest?
IUL is the type most often misunderstood — and most often oversold. We wrote an honest, analytical walkthrough of how its caps, floors, and crediting really work (including when it wins and when it loses badly), and built a separate tool that lets you test it against real historical market data.
Read: How IUL works for high earners · Try the IUL Mechanics tool
Want help thinking it through for your situation?
A first conversation is exploratory — no products presented, no pressure. We figure out whether insurance has a role in your situation at all, and if so, which structure actually fits.
Schedule a Consultation