The surrender value is the actual sum of money a policyholder will receive if they try to access the cash value of a policy.
Often there will be a penalty assessed for early withdrawal of cash from a policy.
The surrender fees will reduce your surrender value. These costs and the policy's surrender value can fluctuate over the life of a policy.
After a certain time period—normally 10 to 15 years for a whole life or universal life insurance policy—the surrender costs will no longer be in effect. At this point, your cash value and surrender value will be the same.