Penn Mutual

a representative of penn stated that I can buy a whole life insurance policy that pays both the cash value and the death benefit.

We took a small life ins. policy for my husband in the late 1970s. Then a Penn Mutual sales person had us change to a little higher policy that is called a Universal Policy. He said it would earn interest every month not less than 4%. He sat in our living room and said that if we were short one month to just - he tossed the envelope on the floor indicating that we could skip a month's premium. He made it sound like a nice way to earn on the policy. Was that ever a lie!!! Turns out it was really akin to a term policy, not what he indicated, and over the last several years we have been hit with huge premium increases and bills for shortages we had to pay in addition to the monthly premiums or the policy would lapse. Last year it was over $600 additional and just this year over $800. Just opened the new bill and the premium has increased by another $20.00/mo. I contacted someone at Penn M. a few years ago and besides getting nowhere, was told that the agents didn't really understand the new policies they were selling - WHAT!! I even e-mailed the CEO and all that happened was that we got a single piece of paper in the mail indicating that the value of the policy was $120.00. I guess she's too busy to respond to the people who pay her salary. We have paid almost half the face value of the policy over these 35+ years and they would have the nerve to drop the policy, that they misrepresented, if we don't continue to give them the continuously escalating premiums as well as a large additional amount each year. They said it was the increasing costs of the insurance. What increasing costs - we send money, they keep it. Is the increasing cost a penalty for living too long? To boot, many years ago I informed them that my husband had stopped smoking around 1980 or 1981. They had never adjusted the bill to reflect a non-smoker's premium even though I sent the letter they told me to write about it. Looks like my husband has lived too long for them!! They know that at his age we cannot afford to switch to another company. Uncaring employees - uncaring CEO. P.S. Had we kept the small policy, we would not be going through this today. I have a policy for the same face value as my husband's, purchased at the same time period, but with another company. My premium has NEVER increased with that company.