Life Insurance Mystery

For the life of me I cannot figure this out.

My dad died in 2016. Shortly after I found out he had taken a universal life insurance policy out on me and I needed to take it over. I have a vague memory of seeing a nurse for a health check in my early 20s and my dad saying that I would get some type of payout at a certain age.

I took over the policy, and am happy to have it. I’m wondering if people who know about insurance can help me figure out the following things:

-why, out of three children was I the only one he had a policy for?

-why it had zero cash value when I took it over. Does that mean he didn’t pay into it? Or that he already withdrew from it? Seems odd to me that he had this for 20 years and it had no cash value when I inherited it, but now that I own it and have been paying into it for 6+ years there is a small cash value.

-is it possible to buy a policy and hold it dormant and not pay premiums?

My dad was a bit of a shady dude…had loads of secret debt that was discovered when he died, and no one can trace what he spent it on.Thanks, Reddit!