Refusal to cancel a policy and refund

I took out a life cover some years back with OUTsurance and has been paying my premiums without fail. I sent them emails last week requesting for the policy to be cancelled due to personal reasons. They did not respond I then decided to call them and spoke to Tshidi who offered to reduce my premium I went and checked my budget and thought I could take the offer because Gregory advised me that I will lose all the premiums I have been paying which makes a total of R7000.I fail to understand why they cannot refund me my money because I never claimed or gave them problems when they were deducting from my account. He advised me that they can only refund R38 from the R7000 which I feel its a reap off as according to my knowledge if you cancel your policy and the contribution made does not amount to R10000 or more, the insurance company must refund you your contributions made. I just want to cancel your policy OUTsurance and get a refund of the contributions made through out the years as I can no longer afford this policy in my budget. Is that too much to ask?