Rider

A rider is an amendment attached to a policy that adds a benefit or capability the base contract doesn't include. Policies from the same company become completely different tools depending on rider selection — design happens here, not on the brochure.

For cash-value strategies, three riders do the heavy lifting. The Paid-Up Additions (PUA) rider is the engine of early Cash Value — the defining feature of an Infinite Banking design. A term rider adds inexpensive temporary Death Benefit on top of the base policy, which raises the IRS funding ceiling and lets you push more PUA dollars in without creating a Modified Endowment Contract (MEC); well-designed policies often use it purely as MEC headroom. And waiver of premium (see Waiver of Premium) keeps the whole system funding itself if you become disabled — insurance on the insurance.

Living-benefit riders turn the death benefit into money you can use while alive: Accelerated Death Benefit riders for terminal, chronic, or critical illness, and long-term-care riders that make a policy a credible alternative to standalone Long-Term Care Insurance. Some are included free and pay pennies on the dollar when exercised; some are priced and pay well — the contract language, not the rider name, tells you which.

Family and flexibility riders round out the menu: guaranteed insurability (buy more coverage at set future dates regardless of health — powerful on policies for children), children's term riders, and accidental death. Each adds cost; each should earn its place.

Rider rules of thumb: understand what triggers the benefit and what it actually pays, ask what each rider costs against the base premium, and revisit at conversion time — Convertible Term exchanges sometimes carry riders forward, sometimes don't.