Complaint Review: American General DES Life Insurance Company

 I have been paying on two life insurance policies for a total of 55 years. My needs having changed, I attempted to research the status of these policies.  There are a number of barriers to doing this in a straighforward manner. 1.Apparently the Company is reluctant to go down on paper and so ignores their own e-mail contact mechanism.

2. Telephone contact with their New York (and not Houston) office revealed that the policy numbers have been changed since my last contact in 2007 making it appear that they did not exist. I informed that they DO exist to the point that American General DES ahs been extracting money from my bank account each month since 1961 on one police and 1978 on the other.  I finally obtained an admission that the policies exist and not wishing to go through this process again asked about terminating them and obtaining a cash value.  I was given the surrender values of these polidies and the understanding that these are the amounts that would be sent to me upon request.  I declined excess tax withholding and did not stipulate overnight delivery at extra expense.

I have received no written confirmation of the above transactions. It appears that the policies went through a process of termination (web page) but the only communication I have received from American General DES have been Billings for the policies and advertisements for still more insurance policies. These arrive on an almost daily basis. 

I am wondering if American General Life Insurance has a policy that they conduct business of this sort through litigation rather than transparent adherence to the letter of their policies. There is vague language in their fax window regarding possibly not actually surrendering the full value of the policies- a circumstance that would pretty much guarantee routinely answering lawsuits.