As long as you've kept up with making your premium payments, and didn't die doing something illegal or excluded by the policy, the life insurance company is sending your beneficiary a death benefit payment upon your death.
Term life insurance policies are cheap, because statistically, they pay out a death benefit less often since many people either outlive the term of their policy or stop paying the premiums.
Whole life insurance is also more expensive because of the costs of storing and investing your premium money. Unlike term life insurance , the money that you put into your whole life insurance policy can be borrowed from the policy if you choose to take a loan.
Term life policies only collect enough money to cover the cost of your life insurance and have no cash value.