Time to boost your life insurance? You might want to consider universal life insurance, a type of life insurance that provides coverage for your entire life and can also earn you money while doing so.

The good news? Plenty of insurance companies in the Albany, NY area offer universal life insurance policies. And you can shop online for these policies, which gives you the opportunity to compare rates from competing life insurance companies without leaving your computer screen.

Before you shop for this specialized life insurance policy, it’s important to understand what it is. Much like whole life insurance policies, this type of policy provides coverage for the insured’s entire life. Unlike term life insurance, universal insurance won’t expire as long as you continue to make your regular payments on time. When you die, your insurance policy will provide payouts to your beneficiaries.

Universal life insurance policies differ in one key way, though: In such policies, you’ll regularly set aside dollars to invest. The face value of your policy, then, can increase or decrease over your life as the investments behind it rise or fall. When you die, your beneficiaries might receive the face value of your policy or the face value and additional cash from the investment account attached to the policy.

Because this form of insurance offers more benefits, it generally costs more than does basic term life insurance. Because of this, it’s especially important to shop around when looking for a universal policy. Doing this is the best way to guarantee that you’ll pay the lowest rates possible for this life insurance protection.

Shopping for life insurance used to be a chore. It required you to call several different insurers to ask individually about their rates. Today, though, you can shop entirely online, something that will save you valuable time.