Two documents come out of a policy and people treat them as the same thing. The annual statement is a report card on the year that just ended. It shows premiums you paid, charges taken out, credits added, your cash value today, any loan balance, and the death benefit as of your policy anniversary. It's accurate, and it only looks backward.
An in-force illustration is different. In force just means the policy is active, and the illustration is a projection that runs forward from today's real numbers. It answers the question the statement can't. Given where this policy sits right now, and what you're doing with it, where does it end up? For anybody using a policy as a source of money, that's the question that matters.
The illustration you got when you bought it doesn't answer that either. It was built on assumptions from that year. It assumed you'd pay exactly what the schedule said, on time, forever, with no loans. If your premium changed, if you took a loan, if the crediting ran below what was shown, or if the carrier lowered a cap or a dividend scale, that document is a historical artifact.
Ask for three versions, either from your agent or from the carrier's service line. One at current assumptions, which means today's dividend scale or today's caps. One at guaranteed assumptions, which shows the floor written into the contract: the lowest crediting rate they can pay, the highest charges they can take, and no dividends at all. And one in between, a couple of points under current. The guaranteed column is a legal worst case that almost never happens. The current column assumes today's conditions hold for forty years, which also almost never happens. Plan with the middle one.
Then read for three things. First, the year the policy runs out of money in the guaranteed column. That tells you how much cushion you're working with. Second, the year charges start to exceed credits. On a universal life policy that's the year your cash value stops growing and starts draining. Third, if you have a loan out, whether the loan balance is growing faster than the cash value is. When those two lines cross, the policy is on a countdown.
Run one every year. Always run one before you do anything structural, meaning a large loan, stopping premium, cutting the face amount, or changing how dividends get used. Most carriers provide them at no charge and turn them around in a few days. If you have a loan, ask specifically for the version that carries the loan balance forward. The default request sometimes projects as if the loan gets paid off, which makes everything look better than it is.
An illustration is a projection and not a promise. The non-guaranteed numbers are what the carrier expects under today's conditions, and conditions change. What the carrier can change and what it can never touch is in what an IUL carrier can change after you buy. Reading the columns without getting turned around is in how to read a policy illustration without getting fooled.