Click here (PDF, 108KB) to download the Universal Life Insurance Overview.

Life gives you lots of choices — especially when you're looking for ways to help protect the people you love, the business you've worked to build and the lifestyle you've established. Whether you're buying a home, starting a family or launching a business venture, basic life insurance protection can be the financial cornerstone for your objectives.

But things also change along the way. You have to be able to adjust to what life brings — and so should your life insurance. That's why NYLIAC¹ universal life insurance policies provide essential permanent life insurance coverage combined with a unique degree of flexibility not offered by all life insurance products. They give you the ability to adapt coverage and payments to meet your changing needs, without compromising the continued insurance coverage you count on for your family or your business.

NYLIAC Universal Life Offers:

• A death benefit that is usually free from income taxes
• Cash value that accumulates tax-deferred and can be accessed in times of need²
• Flexible life insurance protection that can change with your needs over time
• A No Lapse Guarantee Rider³ with a choice of durations to fit your needs
• Premium payments that can be tailored to suit your budget
• A choice of three life insurance benefit options
• Significant business benefits from insurance protection
• The ability to customize your coverage with a variety of policy riders

Death Benefit Protection
Universal life policies, backed by the financial strength of NYLIAC, provide the traditional life insurance protection you need to protect your loved ones, ensure their continued financial security and help protect your business upon your death. Beneficiaries receive policy death benefit proceeds generally free from income taxes and probate delays.

This immediate cash source can help pay final expenses, cover outstanding debts and help ensure business continuation. NYLIAC universal life policies also provide an effective way to transfer wealth to your beneficiaries tax-free.

Permanent Protection and Flexible Payments
NYLIAC universal life policies are designed to give you added flexibility while preserving the benefits of a permanent life insurance policy. You have the freedom to choose the amount of coverage that suits you best—and choose a payment amount that works within your budget. You can also increase or decrease the face amount of your coverage⁴ and vary the frequency and amount of your premium payments⁵ to best meet your individual and business goals.

Cash Value Accumulation
Your NYLIAC universal life policy has the potential to earn cash value, which can increase the death benefit your beneficiaries receive. Provided it's sufficient, your cash surrender value can be accessed through policy loans and partial surrenders² to buy a home, fund a child's education or supplement retirement income. In addition, if cash value accumulation is a high priority for you, you can increase your regular premium payments or make additional unscheduled payments into your policy.⁶ Paying additional premiums provides you with the opportunity for greater cash value accumulation — which can then be used if needed in the future.

Life Insurance Benefit Options
NYLIAC universal life policies offer a choice of three death benefit options. Because your policy can be purchased for a variety of business or personal uses, it's important to select a life insurance benefit option in line with your intended policy use. The life insurance benefit options are:

• Option 1 — is the policy's face amount, and is generally a level amount.
• Option 2 — is the face amount, plus the cash value that has accrued within the policy, usually resulting in a higher death benefit for your beneficiaries.
• Option 3 — especially valuable in a split dollar business arrangement, equals the policy's face amount plus the adjusted total premiums (total premiums paid, less any partial surrenders).

No Lapse Guarantee Rider³ The flexibility of a universal life policy — specifically your ability to change payment dates and premium and coverage levels — is a valuable feature, but your life insurance coverage depends on your policy having enough cash surrender value to cover the monthly policy charges. If you're willing to place some limits on your premium paying flexibility, you may want to mitigate this risk by electing the No Lapse Guarantee Rider (NLGR).

This rider ensures that if you fund the policy at the premium level required to maintain the guarantee, the policy will not lapse, even if the cash surrender value is not sufficient to cover the policy's monthly charges. This feature can allow your coverage to be continuous through any circumstance. The NLGR also includes a "catchup" provision that provides some flexibility in case you need to reactivate the guarantee after missing one or more required premiums within the first ten policy years. You also have the option to prepay the rider's required premiums and that can provide you with an opportunity for long-term out-of-pocket savings.

Business Planning Benefits
If you're a business owner, you're likely aware of the potential financial pitfalls if anything happens to you, a co owner or a key employee. With its ability to conform to your needs, universal life can be an ideal insurance fit for you and your business partners, providing you with financial security and peace of mind.

Because a death benefit can decrease your credit risk, owning life insurance can enhance your financial stability when applying for a bank loan. And with a universal life policy, you have the option to decrease or even skip premium payments if your cash flow fluctuates or to accommodate increased overhead costs.⁵ Establishing a business can be a volatile venture, especially in the early years, and the added flexibility of universal life insurance protection can help provide the cash flow options you may need to establish and grow your business.

NYLIAC universal life policies can also be purchased to cover the lives of key employees or business partners. With the Other Covered Insured (OCI) rider, one universal life insurance policy can provide additional term insurance for up to nine additional people, saving the owner the cost of maintaining multiple policies. This can help to ensure the continuity of your business if a key person passes away unexpectedly.

Your NYLIAC Universal Life Policy Choices
Both NYLIAC Accumulator® and NYLIAC Protector® 2005 policies offer you a range of features and flexibility. Based on your financial objectives, you may find that one product works better for your life and protection needs than the other.

NYLIAC Accumulator® can be ideal for individuals or business owners who are looking for death benefit protection and competitive tax deferred long-term cash value accumulation to provide a significant "living benefit." The cash values that accumulate can be accessed during your lifetime to fund important needs like a child's education, the purchase of a new home or to supplement retirement income.² By emphasizing cash value accumulation through a higher interest crediting rate and a lower loan interest spread, the NYLIAC Accumulator® allows you to maximize the tax deferral aspect of your life insurance policy. Over the long term, this tax deferral feature can lead to increased accumulation. The chart below illustrates why tax deferral is such an important feature, and what it can do for you.

NYLIAC Protector® 2005 is designed to accommodate individuals and business owners whose primary concern is competitively priced death benefit protection. It has lower insurance allows for lower premium payments. As a result, NYLIAC Protector® 2005's cash value accumulation may not be as substantial when compared to the NYLIAC Accumulator®, but lower cost insurance protection may be a better fit for business needs, especially when funding buy/sell agreements and key person insurance to ensure business continuation.

The flexibility of the NYLIAC Protector® 2005 makes it an excellent alternative to term and whole life insurance for individuals and business owners. Term insurance provides the insurance protection you need at a reasonable cost, but the cost will likely increase when the term period ends and, with certain term plans, you may be required to requalify for coverage. Whole life insurance provides guaranteed level premiums and permanent coverage, but the premiums tend to be higher and can tie up valuable cash flow.

Customize Your Policy with Additional Riders⁷
In addition to the No Lapse Guarantee Rider, NYLIAC universal life policies offer you other optional riders including, but not limited to:

Other Covered Insured Rider provides level term insurance coverage on the insured, the insured's spouse, children and business partners. Coverage is convertible to permanent insurance until the earlier of the policy anniversary when the rider insured is age 70, the policy anniversary on which the primary insured is age 100 or the primary insured's death.

Living Benefits Rider offers the policyowner access to a portion of the policy's eligible death benefit if the insured is diagnosed with a terminal illness and has a life expectancy of 12 months or less.

Monthly Deduction Waiver Rider exempts the policyowner from all monthly insurance, rider and administrative charges against the policy cash value during times when the insured is totally disabled.

Spouse's Paid-Up Insurance Purchase Option Rider allows an eligible applicant to use the life insurance benefit proceeds at the time of the insured's death, to purchase a new single premium paid-up whole life insurance policy on the life of the insured's spouse, without providing evidence of insurability.

Additional riders are available depending on the universal life policy you choose. Your New York Life agent can provide you with policy specific riders, and let you know which ones may be suitable for your needs.

Our Family of Products Can Help Protect Your Family
At New York Life, we understand the importance of having enough money to meet your financial obligations and pursue your goals. That's why we offer a variety of competitively priced insurance and financial products to help you meet your goals — whether they include income protection for your family, long-term care preparation or retirement planning. Your financial future is important to us because it is important to you. Moreover, our agents — among the best trained in the industry — are duly committed to the clients we serve.

¹ New York Life Insurance and Annuity Corporation (NYLIAC) is a wholly owned subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company.

² Policy loans and/or partial surrenders may affect the death benefit. Policy loans and/or partial surrenders may also incur a 10% IRS tax penalty if the policy is a modified endowment and the policyholder is not yet 59½. Partial surrenders may be taxable.

³ Failure to satisfy the Cumulative Required NLGR Monthly Premium Test will cause the rider and the guarantee to become inactive, and increases the potential that the policy may lapse for insufficient cash surrender value. At the end of the guarantee period, if only the required premium has been paid, the policy may lapse for insufficient cash surrender value. See rider form for more details.

⁴ Increases may be subject to underwriting.

⁵ The policy will terminate if at any time the cash surrender value is insufficient to pay the monthly deductions. This can happen due to insufficient premium payments, if loans or partial surrenders are made, or if current interest rates or charges fluctuate.

⁶ If a life insurance policy is classified as a modified endowment contract (MEC), there may be adverse tax consequences. Please consult your tax advisor for more information.

⁷ Not all riders are available in all jurisdictions; some variations may exist.

New York Life Insurance Company and NYLIAC hold stable and diversified portfolios and consistently receive among the highest ratings for financial strength from the insurance industry's independent ratings agencies.

A.M. Best	A++
Standard & Poor's	A++
Moody's	Aaa
Fitch	AAA

Source: Third Party Rating Reports (as of 10/5/04)

New York Life Insurance Company
New York Life Insurance and Annuity Corporation (A Delaware Corporation)
51 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10010
www.newyorklife.com
The Company You Keep®
13980(01/05) SMRU 00297283CV(11/04)

 Rate This
Rating: 0/0 (0 votes cast)

 Be the first to Comment