Permanent life insurance is a form of life insurance such as whole life or endowment, where the policy is for the life of the insured, the payout is assured at the end of the policy (assuming the policy is kept current) and the policy accrues cash value.
This is compared with term life insurance where insurance is purchased for a specified period (typically a year, 5 years, 10 years or 20 years) where a death benefit is only paid to the benificiary if the insured dies during the specified period.