What Happens When I Cancel My Life Insurance? 
When you cancel your life insurance , what happens will depend on what type of policy you have . If you have Term Life insurance , the policy will simply end . You will not get any money back unless you had ROP Term -LRB- Return of Premium Term -RRB- and had kept the policy long enough that you are eligible to receive back part of the premiums you paid in . If you have a Permanent Life insurance policy that accumulated cash value , you will be able to receive the surrender value in cash . If you want to quit paying on your Permanent policy but do n't necessarily want to cancel your insurance , you could roll the surrender value over into another life insurance policy . Or you may have the option to change your policy to a reduced paid up policy , which means that it will be a smaller policy but you will not have to make any more payments to it . If you cancel a permanent policy in the first years , there will be a surrender charge that will reduce the cash value , and if you have loans against the policy , those will also be deducted from what you receive from the cash value , along with interest on the loans . You can request a current illustration to see what your Whole Life or Universal Life has for cash value , surrender charges and loan charges . 