via Wall Street Journal
Major insurers are breaking a long-standing industry taboo of raising rates on life-insurance policies they sold to consumers years ago, in the latest fallout from a prolonged stretch of low interest rates.
In recent months, several insurers have notified tens of thousands of people who own a type of coverage known as “universal life” that they are exercising little-used contractual rights to raise costs.
Universal-life policies combine a death benefit with a tax-advantaged savings account. Since the 1980’s they have accounted for at least a quarter of all new individual life-insurance sales, and more than a third over the past decade.
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