Who regulates your policy in Alabama
Insurance is regulated state by state, so your policy is governed by Alabama law and overseen by the Alabama Department of Insurance — not by a federal agency. It licenses the agent who sells to you and handles complaints if something goes wrong.
Two things worth doing before you sign: verify your agent's license is active in Alabama, and keep the consumer line (334-241-4141 or 1-800-433-3966) on hand. Both are free, and an agent not licensed in your state is a hard stop.
Your window to cancel in Alabama
No single fixed statutory free-look period for ordinary individual life insurance was confirmed. Ala. Admin. Code r. 482-1-131-.05(1)(a) only allows the Buyer's Guide to be delivered with the policy if the policy contains an unconditional refund provision of at least 10 days; it does not itself mandate a free-look period. A separate 10-day return right under Ala. Code § 27-19-32 applies to individual disability (health) policies, not life.
Because the rule is not a single fixed number here, the period that applies to you is whatever your specific policy states. Find that clause in the contract before you sign, rather than assuming a standard period exists.
If a carrier fails in Alabama
If your carrier became insolvent, the Alabama Life & Disability Insurance Guaranty Association is the backstop. In Alabama it covers a death benefit up to $300,000 and cash surrender value up to $100,000. Those are separate ceilings, so an IUL's accumulated cash value is protected independently of the death benefit.
This protection is not a reason to skip carrier due diligence. It caps what you would recover, and a policy designed above that cap leaves the excess exposed.
What Alabama adds to the cost
Alabama levies a state premium tax of 2.3% on life insurance premiums. That sits above the 2% median of the 50 states covered here. You do not pay it as a separate line item — carriers price it into the premium, which is part of why the same policy design can cost differently across state lines.
Life premium tax is tiered by policy face amount (ALDOI schedule matching Ala. Code § 27-4A-3): 0.5% if face ≤ $5,000; 1.0% if face > $5,000 and ≤ $25,000; 2.3% if face > $25,000. The 2.3% figure is the general/top rate used as premiumTaxRate.value.