What Happens When Whole Life Insurance Is Paid Up? 
If a life insurance policy is truly `` paid up '' it simply means no further premiums are due and it is guaranteed to be that way . Some people use the term `` paid up '' incorrectly to describe premium `` offsets '' using dividend values to pay required premiums . Such arrangements are not paid up and not guaranteed . More on this in the last paragraph . Some whole life policies are designed to be paid up at a relatively early duration e.g. Policy Year 20 , Age 65 , etc. . The premiums for these policies are relatively high as a result . In comparison , in most cases , whole life policies are designed to have required premiums to age 95 or 100 or later . Such policies have relatively low premiums and are not paid up until age 95 or 100 . A policy can also be `` paid up '' at a lesser value than the death benefit . Whole life policies feature a `` reduced paid up '' non forfeiture provision . In the event the policy owner wishes to stop paying annual required premiums , the policy owner can ask the insurer to reduce the death benefit amount for the policy so that no further premiums would need to be paid . It is important to note that policies which use policy dividends and/or the cash value of Paid Up Additions to offset the required premiums due at some future point are not `` paid up '' . In a low interest environment like we have now , dividends are being reduced from what was illustrated . Many clients who expected to stop paying premiums and instead pay them via the dividend values in their policy can not do so yet since the dividend values are not sufficient to offset premiums . 