Life Policy Pitfalls

I took out a life policy with Capital Alliance in 1998 who were subsequently taken over in 2005 by Liberty life. I recently received a notification from Liberty life giving me 2 options - one, was that my premium was to be increased by 50% or two, my life policy death benefit would be halved - all this due apparently to the cost borne by Liberty life of maintaining my life cover. I accepted the 50% premium increase. Since then it's been a bit of a nightmare - initially they deducted a premium which had been increased by 100% (making the premium more than the SASSA grant I was receiving). After a flurry of emails (and a period of time) they then deducted the original premium (with no increase) which meant that my death benefit would be halved. We are now in the process of trying to get them to deduct the original premium with the 50% increase. I am 82 now and I took the policy out initially with the intention of leaving this planet with a clean slate, as well as leaving my wife and 2 kids with a few rand. Nothing was ever mentioned to me by either Capital Alliance or Liberty Life that my policy would reviewed periodically and that I could be subjected to premium increases outside of the normal annual increases. Making things worse was Liberty Life's tardiness in correcting matters - very inept administration.