Surrendering a VUL policy - question on the surrender charge

I am surrendering a VUL policy (bad decision 4 months ago).  The cash value is ~$10k and the surrender charge is ~$19k.  I assumed I would have to pay the difference ~$9k.  When I called NWM, they said that wasn't the case, that they would simply turn off the regular payments and the policy would lapse once the cash value was drawn down. I was very pleasantly surprised - is this right?