Who regulates your policy in Massachusetts
Insurance is regulated state by state, so your policy is governed by Massachusetts law and overseen by the Division 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 Massachusetts, and keep the consumer line ((617) 521-7794) on hand. Both are free, and an agent not licensed in your state is a hard stop.
Your window to cancel in Massachusetts
G.L. c. 175, § 187H mandates a 10-day free-look only for individual life policies with face amount less than $25,000; there is no single fixed free-look period covering all ordinary individual life policies (including face amounts of $25,000 or more).
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 Massachusetts
If your carrier became insolvent, the Massachusetts Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association is the backstop. In Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts adds to the cost
Massachusetts levies a state premium tax of 2% on life insurance premiums. That is right at the 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.