As with all life insurance policies, you have to weigh what the policy costs with what you are getting.

Here are some factors to consider:

• Mortality and expense fees. These are the fees the insurer charges for the cost of insuring you. With a VUL, part of your premium payments goes toward mortality and expense fees and part goes toward your cash value, which is a pool of money that accumulates value over time. Obviously, you don't want to pay too much in mortality and expense fees because it will leave you with very little cash value.

• Financial strength of the insurer. You want to make sure your insurance company will be financially strong enough to pay a death benefit when you eventually die, or be able to redeem your cash value if you ever need to access it.

• Subaccount options. VULs enable you to build your cash value by investing in subaccounts that could consist of stocks, bonds, or mutual funds. Make sure your VUL gives you a range of investment options. You also want to look at the past performance of the investments, but, of course, past performance is no indication of future performance. To get star ratings of various VULs, check out Insure.com's Morningstar Variable Annuity Performance Tool.

Finally, remember that cash value in a VUL policy is a long-term investment, so short-term volatility in the stock market should not worry you unduly.

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Disclaimer: We are journalists, not financial planners or insurance brokers. Nothing we say should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy or sell any insurance product, or to provide other financial or legal advice.