The owner of a life insurance policy holds the rights. Only the owner can take a loan, change a beneficiary, or surrender the policy. If you're the owner and you become unable to handle your affairs, because of a stroke or dementia or an accident, nobody else can use those rights automatically, which means the policy can sit frozen exactly when the family needs it. Your spouse, even if they're the beneficiary, doesn't gain the owner's powers.
That matters most when the policy is doing a job. Suppose it's your family's emergency fund, or the place you'd borrow from to cover a bill. If you can't sign, the money sits there. The family may have to go to court to be appointed as a conservator or guardian before they can ask the carrier for anything. That process takes time and costs money, and it's public.
A durable power of attorney is the usual way around it. It's a legal document where you name an agent to act for you, and durable means it keeps working if you lose capacity. For a policy, it helps to have the document grant authority over insurance contracts, loans, and beneficiary matters. Carriers also have their own preferences. Some accept any properly drawn power of attorney, and some want theirs on their own form. Call your carrier and ask what they require, and file that form while you're healthy.
A second tool is a successor owner. Many policies let you name someone who becomes the owner if you die or can't act. That's separate from the beneficiary. The beneficiary receives the death benefit, and the successor owner takes control of the cash value. Many people never name one. The post on handing the policy to your kid later covers one reason to think about it, and the beneficiary form post explains why those forms carry weight.
Finally, tell the person. A power of attorney in a drawer does nothing if the agent doesn't know there's a policy. The post on telling your family the policy exists goes through what to share.
I'm a licensed insurance broker, not an attorney, so the power of attorney itself should come from an Oregon estate attorney. What I can say is this: pull your policy's ownership page, see who is listed as owner and successor owner, and ask your carrier for its power of attorney requirements before you ask an attorney to draft anything.