The answer is yes – although canceling your whole life insurance policy isn’t a choice to make lightly. There’s more to consider than simply stopping your payments. It typically begins with a call to your insurer, who will walk you through the process.
And there might be some good reasons to do that, especially if you’ve been paying your premiums for awhile now. It’s understandable to wonder if you can get your life insurance money back. After all, you haven’t died yet.
Before you pick up the phone, let’s talk through the process and discuss an even better option.
Can I Get Money Back From Canceling My Whole Life Insurance Policy?
There are a number of reasons why you might look into canceling your insurance policy, but regardless of your motivation, you will want to get as much money back from your policy as you can.
Whole Life Insurance policies have a “cash value”. This is a feature that sets aside some of your premium payments in a fund with a minimum growth rate. You can use this fund to borrow money, or simply collect from if you surrender the policy.
The longer that you’ve been paying into it, the more money you’ll be able to get back from your whole life policy when you cancel, along with fewer fees/charges associated with canceling.
Unfortunately, if you haven’t held the policy for very long (less than 10 years or so) there may not be a big enough cash value built up to redeem. If there is, there are usually fees that go along with surrendering your policy.
Another factor to consider is that, while the death benefit that would go to your beneficiaries isn’t considered taxable income, the cash value you would receive from canceling your policy is taxable.