It happens all the time. Someone's cleaning out files, or settling a parent's affairs, and finds a whole life policy from 1996. Premiums maybe still auto-drafting, maybe long stopped. The instinct is usually to cash it in and be done. Slow down. You might be holding an asset you can't buy anymore.
First move: request an in-force illustration from the carrier. It's free, and it shows what the policy actually holds today: cash value, death benefit, any outstanding loans, and a projection forward. Old policies sometimes carry features that left the market years ago, like strong guaranteed rates that carriers no longer offer on new contracts. The paper in the drawer may be doing better work than anything you could replace it with.
While you wait for the illustration, check four things. Whether premiums are still being paid, and by whom. Whether a loan is sitting against the cash value. Which dividend option is elected, because decades of dividends left on the wrong setting is common and fixable. And whether the beneficiary is still the right human, since thirty-year-old designations have a way of naming ex-spouses and deceased parents.
Then decide from the menu, which is wider than keep-or-cash. Keep it as is. Stop premiums and let non-forfeiture provisions convert it to a smaller paid-up policy. Restructure how dividends apply. Or, if the policy is objectively weak, move the value into a better contract through a 1035 exchange without triggering taxes on the way.
Surrendering is the one move on that menu you can't undo, and gains above premiums paid come with a tax bill in the year you take the check. Never make it before the review. Bring the illustration to someone who'll walk through it with you, and treat the whole exercise like the anniversary review the policy never got. An hour of reading has rescued a lot of drawer policies, and a fair number of families' money.