Underwriters compare the premium you're committing to with your income. Ask for a $50,000 annual premium on a $100,000 income, and most carriers will turn it down, because that's too big a share of your income for them to believe you'll keep paying. It's the question behind a video on getting a $50,000-a-year policy approved on a $100,000 income, and the answer is in how the policy is built.

Some carriers want to know exactly what you'll put in each year. With one of those, the same person might get approved for $25,000, set up as a bill of a little over $2,000 a month that the carrier expects to receive. If you fall behind, the catch-up rules are limited and complicated.

The other route is a small base premium with a paid-up additions rider. Paid-up additions are extra premium dollars that buy small pieces of fully paid insurance and show up as cash value right away. Some carriers let you add them unscheduled, which means any time during the year, up to the MEC limit. The MEC limit is the most a policy can take in before it becomes a modified endowment contract and its loans lose their tax-free treatment. My own policy works this way. The base premium is $5,000. I pay $500 a month automatically, which covers the base and puts $1,000 a year into paid-up additions, enough to keep the rider active. Then I add the rest, up to about $50,000, whenever I choose.

I don't keep $50,000 sitting around to do that. I put a chunk in, borrow back what's available once it's credited, put that back in, and spend the rest of the year paying the loans down. A deposit usually needs about 10 days to clear before you can borrow against it. My plan is to borrow heavily like this for seven to ten years and then focus on paying the loans back. Loans charge interest, they reduce the cash value and death benefit until they're repaid, and dividends aren't guaranteed, so this only works with cash flow that can keep up with the interest.

The trade-off is that the carriers that want a fixed schedule tend to project more cash value and a bigger death benefit for the same money. If you know your number and can commit to it, one of them can come out ahead. If you need the flexibility, a carrier that lets you put in ten times as much whenever you have it will usually leave you with more cash value than a slightly better dividend on a smaller amount. Base premium vs. paid-up additions covers the mix.

Once a policy's cash value gets past about $65,000 to $100,000, some banks will open a line of credit secured by it, which moves money in and out faster than a policy loan. I opened a $265,000 line of credit that way at 3.25%, and rates have moved since. How to get a bank line of credit backed by your policy covers how that works.

Your worst year's income should set the base premium. Whatever you'd like to add in a good year is the room to design in for paid-up additions.