It appears, having done a bit of research on it, that the typical commission (and surrender fee period) on VULs is quite expensive, and I'm hesitant to get involved with or suggest insurance based products in most cases (ie. VAs). However, there are places where these structures can make some sense - in particular, I'm looking at them in the context of estate planning and setting up an irrevocable trust with the kids as beneficiaries and funding that trust with a VUL - it make sure the kids get a nice payout if the parents die before having accumulated and transferred a lot of money in, the money there grows tax-deferred, and since it's paid in over the course of years, if the premiums are below the gift tax threshold, it's a means of getting assets out of the estate without simply gifting them outright.
But the vast majority of these things are apparently sold with those outragously high commissions, and I'm not sure how competitive the actual insurance rates inside them are.
I've found a couple of no(low)-load providers - Ameritas and TIAA-CREF. Are there any others? How do these compare to buying from more traditional providers (with surrender fee periods) like AXA or AIG, for example?
(FWIW, this isn't for me and, frankly, I'm still a little skeptical of the need for these kinds of policies at all, but given the irrevocable trust involved, I don't see how alternatives like buying term and investing the difference can work as well, plus is seems kind of difficult to really compare the cost of insurance inside a VUL against term - other thoughts about this, of course, are also welcome)
Thanks, all!