Sanlam investment

I had a Sanlam policy for about 20 years. The policy was not performing well so I asked if I could move the policy to a different fund. The answer was no. They drowned me in documentation and in the documentation I noticed that they had been taking 10 percent off my monthly contribution for the 20 years, this was before they invested the money in a fund. When I asked them to allow the section 14 transfer of the money to another company they requested R54 561 in penalty fees to do the transfer. I tried to get a reason for this but it was not answered satisfactorily.