<prompt> Human: I will try to lay the facts out as I understand them but am basically trying to figure out how to move forward on a whole life, life insurance policy that my mom has and recently informed me of. It is a 1 million dollar policy that she got years ago and paid a large lump sum in the beginning. As I understand it the amount she paid basically kept her up to date until March 2017. She presented it to my siblings a few weeks ago and said she was no longer going to be making any contribution to the policy. Going forward we have basically two options. Pay a one time payment of 225,000 and bring the policy to a fully paid status this is not financially an option for any of us. Option 2 is to pay roughly 25,000 a year split between the three of us in premiums until the policy pays. We all have a lot of reservations about this. It seems pretty clear that our only option is to walk away from the policy and not look back. I am just trying to educate myself on the matter and learn about any other options.  <response>: It sounds like this is a substantial permanent policy. You havent mentioned what type of policy this is but you should contact the insurance company and see what your options are for possibly reducing the premium amount if your mom still needs coverage. If your mom doesnt need coverage and she just wants to maximize her investment it might make sense to do a 1035 exchange into a high quality Variable annuity that is invested aggressively. The cost basis total dollars put in of permanent policies like this is typically a lot higher than the cashvalue due to ME fees in the contract. When you do the 1035 exchanhe the cost basis carries over into the annuity. The difference between the cost basis and the account value of the annuity is the amount of tax free growth your mom can have. For example, if your mom put 100k into the life insurance but the cash value is only 40k, the first 60k of growth in the annuity would be tax free because you have cost basis of 100k but an account value of 40k. Additional money can be put into the annuity if she wanted to make it grow faster. Of course all of this depends on her goals and financial situation. 