Self

• When you own your own policy, you make all the decisions about what happens to it. You decide who the beneficiaries are. You also decide how to pay premiums and you may transfer the ownership to someone else. If your policy builds a cash reserve, you are in control of that reserve. You may take withdrawals from it if the policy allows withdrawals or you may borrow against the value of the reserve according to the provisions of the contract.
  
  

Spouse or Other Individual

• Your spouse or someone else may own your policy. If you choose to have someone else own your policy, be sure this person is someone you trust. This person will be responsible for making all premium payments. Additionally, they will have the same power you'd have if you owned the policy.
  
  

Effects

• If you allow another individual to own your policy, the policy is removed from your estate. This means that when you die the death benefit will not be counted toward your estate value. Estates valued at more than $5 million are subject to estate taxes, so this could save your heirs a significant amount of money in taxes, allowing them to keep more of their inheritance.
  
  

Consideration

• When deciding whether to retain ownership over your policy or giving up that ownership, remember that you can do both. You may start out owning your policy and then transfer that policy to someone else later on in life. Alternatively, you may purchase a life insurance trust. In lieu of giving the policy to another individual, you may have a legal entity own it. A life insurance trust will remove the policy from your estate and can be set up so that your wishes are carried out. But once the trust is set up, you may not alter any policy provisions like beneficiary designations and you cannot take back control over the policy later.