Keep the Life Insurance or Cash Out the Policy?

Advice on whether to hold on to a whole life policy or surrender it for money

Jean Chatzky,

AARP

Comments

Published August 02, 2024

Steven and Kathryn Burtch sitting outside with dog between them and trees around them

Steven and Kathryn Burtch saw rising life insurance premiums and questioned whether they should keep the policies for the death benefit or cash out.

Hannah Yoon

The problem

Steven and Kathryn Burtch, both 62, bought whole life insurance after marrying in 1984. “My father always had life insurance,” says Steven, who purchased the policies both to protect against disaster and to build wealth. Today, Steven’s policy has a death benefit of about $200,000 and a cash value of $93,000; Kathryn’s is worth about $70,000. But there’s a cost: The premiums, rising about 11 percent annually, are now more than $2,000 a year. “Should we keep the policies for the death benefit?” Steven asked me in an email. Or should they cash out?

The advice

Permanent insurance, such as the Burtches’ whole life policies, has both a death benefit and an investment component or cash value designed to grow over time. If a policyholder dies, beneficiaries get the death benefit. But the holder can access the smaller cash value earlier by “surrendering” the policy.

Ask Jean Chatzky

If you would like Jean Chatzky to write a column about helping you sort out a financial problem of yours, please send an email to rescue@aarp.org.

Advice about surrendering can be clouded by conflicts of interest. Insurance agents might favor keeping a policy. Financial advisers might prefer you cash out so they can invest the proceeds. Indeed, Steven’s insurance agent said to keep the coverage, and his financial adviser said to cash out.

So I turned elsewhere for help: Wisconsin-based actuary Scott Witt, one of the few fee-only life insurance advisers in the U.S. Rather than sell insurance, these professionals evaluate policies people are thinking of buying, cashing out or reconfiguring.

“This is not a cookie-cutter analysis,” Witt says. “If I had two clients with the exact same policy, the advice for one might be to hang on till death and for the other to surrender.”

Witt’s first question for Steven and Kathryn, who both work at a small private school: Do they need the insurance for their family? Not anymore. They’re already well situated for retirement, thanks partly to Steven’s prior career in the corporate sector. Their two sons, both in their 30s, live independently; they’ll be fine without any death benefit.

How is their health? Kathryn’s is great, and Steven’s is under control with medication. Each comes from a long-lived family.

If they cashed out, how would they invest the money? Mostly in stocks.

Finally, what’s the potential for regret? “People are reluctant to surrender because they’re convinced that as soon as they do, they’ll get hit by a bus,” Witt says. Can the Burtches let go of that thought? Yes, says Steven.

Then came Witt’s analysis. If the Burtches kept the policies, Witt recommended reconfiguring them to stop paying premiums. That would cut their death benefits but improve their investment performance. If they cashed out, he assumed they’d put the money in stocks, with an annual return (his estimate) of 7 percent.

Witt estimated that the Burtches would net around $88,000 by surrendering Steven’s policy, since nearly $40,000 of its current $93,000 cash value represents an investment gain subject to federal and state taxes. So if Steven got hit by the proverbial bus next year, keeping the insurance, with its $200,000 death benefit, would have been the better move. But his one-year mortality risk is low — about one in a thousand. If Steven lives to age 76 (which he’s 92 percent likely to do), the invested cash is projected to hit around $210,000, eclipsing the death benefit, which would have grown to $207,000. The math on Kathryn’s policy is similar.

The outcome

Steven and Kathryn plan to surrender their insurance. “We had to go back to why we got it in the first place,” Steven says. “Those reasons aren’t true anymore.” Witt concurs with that approach. Anytime you go through a significant, life-altering event, he says — whether it’s retirement or getting your kids off the family payroll — it’s a good time to reassess your insurance needs.

%{postComment}%

Jean Chatzky, AARP’s financial ambassador, is the founder and CEO of HerMoney.com. She is the host of two podcasts, AARP’s Closing the Savings Gap and HerMoney With Jean Chatzky. The financial editor of NBC Today for 25 years, Jean is an award-winning personal finance journalist and best-selling author who has made it her mission to help simplify money matters, increasing financial literacy both now and in the future.