If you combine life insurance policies, does what you paid previously carry over into the new policy?

So I have a crippling amount of student loan debt, especially private loans. No judgment please, as I wish I was not in the situation that I am. For some background on my question:

When I was born, my dad took out two separate life insurance policies on me. My parents paid the premiums on these for years. A few years ago, they told me they could get a lower premium by combining both policies and that essentially it was their backup plan to cover my student loan debt in case something happened to me. So both policies got combined into one new policy, and I had to go through the standard blood testing, urine, drug, etc. to determine eligibility.

Fast forward to now – I am doing my best to make monthly payments but I’m drowning right now, and was looking into cashing out what is available on my life insurance policy based on how much has been paid into it. The policy is still under their control – I asked for them to sign it over to me when they combined it, and they told me no, even though I was 26 years old at the time and completely financially independent.

I had the idea to sit down and talk with my parents about finally signing my policy over to me so I can withdraw however much money had been paid into it over the past 30 years — in an effort to get a big chunk of my loans paid off. But then I got to thinking – would what was paid into the original policies be looped into the new, combined policy?

Does anyone have experience with how something like this works? Would they have had to cancel both original policies and write a new policy for me? If so, would that have made all the previous payments null and void? Anything else I should know?

TIA for the help!