Which is better Paid-Up or Surrender?

A life insurance policy in which if all the premium payments are complete till some specified period and insured person is free of all payment obligations and the policy stays intact until insured's death or termination by its maturity or Surrender of the policy is called Paid-Up Policy.

Life Insurance Policies usually last the insured person's lifetime or maturity period, but some some policies can be paid up completely till a specified period. Only Traditional Life Insurance Plans can be a Paid Up Policy. 

It is calculated as the ratio of number of premium paid to the total number of premiums payable multiplied by the Sum Assured value.

 i.e. Paid-Up Value = No. of Premium paid /No. Premiums Payable X Sum Assured.

For Example:  Pradip has one traditional Endowment Policy having Sum Assured Value Rs.2,00,000/- and the policy tenure is 16 years. Unfortunately Pradip did not able to continue his policy after continuing is upto 8 years full premium paid. 
Now from very next year he did not paid any due premium to make it continue, hence very next year this policy become automatically a Paid-Up policy.

Which is better Paid-Up or Surrender of Policy?

Now, Pradip has two option either he can go and surrender his policy by providing all necessary documents to the branch or let it become Paid-Up.

Also Read : How To Surrender An LIC Policy ??

A Policy can be paid-up from next premium due. Suppose I continue my policy up-to 8 years and from next year I fail to pay premium then it become automatically Paid-up to its proportionate to its  premium paid ; Payable And Sum Assured.

Every Insurance Plan has it surrender value which can be known from servicing branch. Its is approx 30% of Sum Assured in regular plan and up-to 90% in single premium plan.

If we calculate in both condition then we can make comparison itself and understand which is better. For Example you have S.A.=2,00,000/-; Tenure - 16 Years; Premium - Rs.13000 (Approx); Premium Paid up-to full 8 years.

Surrender Value : Rs.2,00,000 X 30% = Rs.60,000/-  (Immediate Payment)

Paid-Up Value : Rs.2,00,000 X 8/16 = Rs.1,00,000/- + Vested Bonus  (Payment after death or maturity)

You can decide which is better. On Surrender you will get immediate payment while on letting Paid-Up of Policy you will get after death or maturity which ever is earlier)