What if you want to surrender your life insurance policy?

by NonsmokinJoe » Fri Jul 11, 2008 09:13 pm

You may have your own reasons for surrendering your life insurance policy. The reasons must be significant enough, since surrendering a policy would mean that you lose all the benefits that had prompted you to go for it in the first place.

Topics covered

How much will you get back if you surrender the policy?
What happens after you surrender your policy?
What if you want to retain the death benefits?
How to surrender your life insurance policy

How much will you get back if you surrender the policy?

You'd receive the accumulated cash value if you surrender your policy before the maturity date. The cash value is the total sum of money that you have paid as premiums for the policy along with the interests earned on them.

What happens after you surrender your policy?

You'll be entitled to receive the accumulated cash value after you surrender your life insurance policy. However, surrendering the policy before the maturity date will impact the way you'll receive it. The consequences of your life insurance policy surrender are enumerated below:

You'll have to pay surrender fees - You'll be charged a fee for surrendering your life insurance policy before the date of maturity. The earlier you surrender the policy, the higher will be the surrender charge that you'll have to pay.
Cash value gets reduced if you'd taken out a loan - The cash value will be less if you had taken out a loan against the policy, since the loan amount and the accrued interest will be deducted accordingly.
Taxes will be imposed - Since you're surrendering your policy earlier than the date of maturity, the cash value might be considered as taxable income. If you have any outstanding loan balance on the policy, taxes will be levied on that as well.
You'll have to renounce the death benefits - The cash value you get from the policy, after you surrender it, will include the accumulated dividends and unearned premiums. You give up both the death benefit and life insurance coverage that you had with the existing policy, and won't need to pay premiums on it anymore.

The remaining cash value is directly paid to the policyholder - either in cash, or in check.

What if you want to retain the death benefits?

It is obvious that no one buys life insurance policy, with the intention to surrender it mid-way. Therefore, it will be wise to consider other options rather than going for a life insurance policy surrender. To retain the death benefits, one may:

Opt for a partial surrender - Transform the existing life insurance policy into a reduced paid-up insurance. Surrendering the policy as a whole gets rid of any coverage that you had with it. With a partial surrender, a portion of the life insurance policy is retained. However, the death benefits and cash value gets reduced.
Borrow against the cash value - If you have immediate cash requirements, you can even take out loans against the cash value, without giving up the death benefits. You may repay the loan with time, but don't need to worry even if you're unable to pay it back. The loan amount will simply be deducted when the insurer gives out the death benefits to the beneficiary.
Purchase a new policy - Use the cash, after surrendering his life insurance policy, to purchase a new term life insurance policy for an extended time period.

How to surrender your life insurance policy

If you've made up your mind that you'll surrender the life insurance policy, you can do the following:

Call up the insurance company and know how to surrender your policy.
Ask for a Service Request Form.
Fill in the necessary details about your policy in the form. Tick the option where you want to surrender the policy.
Fill in your preference, i.e. the way you want to receive the available cash value from the policy.

Your insurer might ask you to submit a letter for surrender of insurance policy, Check out the sample insurance surrender letter, which you can forward to your insurer for the purpose.

Total Comments: 115

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:17 pm Post Subject: life insurance for girlfriend's children

I was the partner of the mother of two children. we were never married but I purchased life insurance policies for both of her under age 18 children in their names. I paid the monthly polices for the children monthly for over 16 years. we separated recently and i stopped making monthly payments on the policies. how can I surrender the policies and get the cash value of each policy?

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2017 02:27 am Post Subject: Whole life ins.policy

Have a 10,000.00 policy for 23 years.have paid 16,928.00 in premiums.should I surrender the policy for 8000.00?

Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2017 08:49 pm Post Subject:

what form do insurance companies use to report gain on surrender cash value?

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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:34 am Post Subject: police surandar

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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:43 am Post Subject: surender my policy

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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 09:42 pm Post Subject: Surrendering children's policy

My "child" is 39 yrs old, has her own career and life insurance, we got it when she was born, The face value is $15,000, the cash surrender value is $ 1166.20. do I need to pay federal and state tax on this. We are now retiring, the insurance company is raising the premiums on it, near doubling. We live in WV

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Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 08:40 am Post Subject: surrender policy

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Posted: Thu May 17, 2018 04:01 am Post Subject: surrender value

How long after a unnversal policy cancels can you get the surrender value?