Changes to policy without communication with policy owner

I took funeral policies for my parents and my mother in law with Old Mutual more than 10 years ago. Last year in February, my father passed on and I got paid about 50% of what he was insured for. Some technical explanations were given, but I was unfazed. I also picked up then that my Mother in Law's derails were incorrect. Today I paid Old Mutual a visit today to fix this, and to my surprise, the policy had lapsed. For starters, I had never stopped the payments myself, I have never received any notification either of mon-payments or whatever the problem was. You can imagine if I had come to make a claim, and only to be told the policy lapsed! This is pathetic, honestly.