Permanent life insurance policies are the ones that build cash value; term life insurance generally does not.

Policies that have cash value

The main types of life insurance that typically include a cash value component are:

  • Whole life insurance (including many “final expense” policies).
  • Universal life insurance (e.g., traditional UL).
  • Variable universal life (VUL), where cash value is invested in subaccounts.
  • Indexed or other variants of universal life, which credit interest based on an index formula.

In all of these, part of each premium goes to the death benefit cost and part goes into a cash value account that grows tax-deferred and can often be borrowed against or withdrawn.

Policies that don’t build cash value

Most standard term life insurance policies do not have any cash value; if you outlive the term, coverage ends and there’s typically no payout. There are some “return of premium” term products that refund some premiums at the end of the term, but these are structured differently from traditional cash value accumulation.

TL;DR: If you are asking “which life insurance has cash value,” the answer is: look at whole life, universal life, variable or indexed universal life (and many final expense policies), not regular term life.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.