seeking Advice: keep policy, go "paid up", or something else?

My mom is asking me to take over the payments for a life insurance policy she took on me in 2005. (please note that we're in Canada). I had a vague notion that she had a life insurance policy out on me, but never knew any details, or did we talk about it before.

This to me is a big decision, as it's asking me to pay the monthly for the rest of my life. I'm turning 43 next month. no health problems. non smoker. single. barely drink.

And as I've been learning more and more about personal finance, it seems in general whole life insurance is not a great place to put your money? (Dave Ramsey, etc).

Here's the info i know for the policy:

Creation Date: 2005 Annual Premium: $2688 (224/month) Cash Value: ~$59k Death Benefit: $150k guaranteed. (last update based on projections was 344k) Dividends: $2298

since i'm unemployed at the moment, paying $224/month would not be ideal — although maybe i can make it work. i'm looking into what the different options are:

1) keep things as is, pay the $224/month

2) cancel the policy and get the 59k cash payout (if that's what happens?)

3) she's been leaning toward switching to "Paid Up". which to my understanding freezes the Death Benefit at 344k and something to do with foregoing the Dividends to pay the for monthly premiums?

4) ???

apologies for the n00bness, but i have never thought about life insurance at all until these last few hours.

trying to figure out the implications of any changes. since it's an old policy, maybe there's something i'm missing… i'm open to being wrong!

thanks for reading 🙂

submitted by /u/temp0rn
[comments]