Updated August 7, 2026. Quick answer: most term policies contain a conversion option — the right to convert to permanent coverage without new underwriting and without a medical exam. It is the most valuable feature in the contract for anyone whose health has changed, and it expires on a date almost nobody checks.
What the option actually is
A conversion right lets you exchange term coverage for a permanent policy from the same insurer on the basis of your original health rating. No exam, no questionnaire, no decline.
That is the whole point of it. If you were healthy when the term policy was issued and are not now, the conversion option may be the only route to coverage you have — because the open market will re-underwrite you, and re-underwriting is exactly what a change in health makes expensive or impossible.
The deadline, and why it is missed
The conversion window usually ends well before the term does. A twenty-year term policy does not necessarily allow conversion for twenty years — the right commonly expires at a stated policy year or a stated age, whichever comes first.
So the failure mode is specific and common: someone holds a term policy they believe runs for years, develops a condition, and discovers the conversion right lapsed on a date nobody mentioned since the day they bought it. The policy is still in force. The option is not.
The date is in your contract and nowhere else. No annual statement highlights it. Read the policy, or ask the insurer in writing for the conversion expiry date and the products currently available for conversion — both, because the second question has a moving answer.
Who should check theirs this month
- Anyone whose health has changed since the policy was issued. The option is worth most precisely when new coverage would be hardest to get.
- Anyone approaching the end of a term who has discovered a continuing need — an illiquid estate, a survivor gap, a dependant.
- Anyone who declined a pension survivor benefit and is relying on term cover that will end — that gap does not end when the term does.
What conversion does and does not give you
It does not give you the old premium. The new permanent policy is priced at your current age — sometimes considerably higher. What it preserves is your health rating, which is the part that cannot be bought back.
Partial conversion is often available, and is the underused version: converting part of the face amount keeps some permanent coverage affordable rather than forcing an all-or-nothing choice. Ask about it specifically; it is not always volunteered.
If the conclusion is that you no longer need the coverage at all, that is a legitimate answer and this is the page to leave: whether you still need life insurance in retirement — where the answer is often no.
We sell no insurance, take no commission, and are paid nothing if you buy or keep a policy. That is worth stating on a page like this, because almost everyone else answering this question is paid on the answer.
Sources and limits
Honest gap. Conversion rights are contract terms, not law, and they vary by insurer and by policy. Nothing on this page can tell you what your own policy says — it tells you what to ask and why the date matters. Get the conversion expiry date and the available conversion products from your insurer in writing.
See methodology and corrections. General information, not financial or tax advice. No advertising appears on this page and we earn nothing from it.