What are participating and non-participating policies?

Life insurance policies are broadly categorised as participating and non-participating policies.

Participating policies are policies that entitle the policyholders to share in the profits of the insurance company, in consideration of the additional premiums they contribute. The profits given are generally called bonuses. The benefits from participating policies include a non-guaranteed element (i.e. bonus), which is determined by the performance of the insurance company.

Non-participating policies do not share in the profits of the company. An example of a non-participating policy is a term insurance policy.