I feel like I already maximize my available tax advantaged investment vehicles (Roth, employer sponsored retirement savings plan, etc) and I already have both term and whole life policies. I am employed now but expect to be self employed several years in the future. I also expect the need to borrow money from myself; when opportunity knocks I like to have dry powder. I'm entrepreneurial by nature, but business loans involve red tape and personal loans aren't the best rate around. I'm attracted to the idea of tapping into the accumulated cash value of a permanent life policy as a loan to myself, but when I started my current whole life policy, my only goals at the time were diversification away from the market while also grabbing a healthy death benefit. Borrowing from it wasn't on my radar. To that end, the accumulated cash value earns at 4.5%; however, borrowing from it costs 7.4%. Clearly this isn't structured in a way that it would EVER make sense to borrow from my whole life policy unless it was my absolute LAST option and I couldn't qualify for ANY other type of loan. Borrowing from my whole life policy offers me only flexibility, but at the cost of an 11.9% spread. That is pretty barfy. If my objective for an additional policy is to beef up the total death benefit to my beneficiaries while also being able to "be my own banker," is universal the way to go? It seems like there are a lot of different flavors of universal, and it's not as simple as deciding between VUL and IUL. I have a harder time doing an apples to apples comparison between companies since the universal policies appear to have a lot more variables to compare than whole life policies. If universal is the way, I'd appreciate any recommendations where to find a policy that aligns with my intent: to increase the death benefit while being able to borrow from myself in the most favorable terms possible.