Riders are the options list on a policy, and like the options list at a car dealer, some change what the machine can do while others just pad the invoice. Here are the ones that do real work on a high cash value policy, and what to ask about each.
The paid-up additions rider is the big one for whole life. It lets extra premium buy small, fully paid slivers of coverage that add cash value and death benefit immediately, and it's the main tool for tilting a policy toward accumulation. If cash value is the goal, this rider mostly is the design. The split between base premium and PUAs gets its own treatment in Base Premium vs. Paid-Up Additions over at Build a LifeLOC.
Waiver of premium is disability protection for the plan itself. If you become disabled under the rider's definition, the company pays the premium and the policy keeps building as if nothing happened. For a strategy meant to run thirty years, that's cheap insurance on the thing doing the compounding. Definitions of disability vary a lot between contracts, so read that section of the actual contract rather than the brochure summary.
Term riders sound like filler and often aren't. A blended design uses a term rider to hold the total death benefit up while keeping the base premium low, which raises how much you can fund without crossing the MEC line. This is one of those levers that separates a policy designed for cash value from one designed for commission.
Chronic illness and long-term care riders let you access part of the death benefit early if you can't perform basic daily activities. Quality varies wildly here. Some are included at no charge, some cost real premium, and some discount the benefit at claim time in ways the sales conversation skipped. Ask which kind you're looking at.
What about the rest, accidental death and the like? Your family's expenses don't double because the cause was an accident. Every rider on your policy should have a job you can name in one sentence. If neither you nor the agent can name it, that premium has a better place to live. How the pieces get assembled is covered on the design page.