Conseco Life insurance Premium payment delay to terminate policy Pittsburg Pennsylvania

My wife and I signed up for this policy in 1998. We were 38 years of age at the time. We made large after tax payments to this investment instrument for one year only to find out that all of it (24,000.00) went to cost of insurance and misc fees. We were horrified that we lost all of that money but there was a life insurance policy attached to this so we began funding just that aspect of this instrument. We have been paying this premium up until now with no real problems untill the last year or so. We stopped geting premum notices and started getting 60 day grace period notices? We would pay the premium and the check would clear our bank before the policy was scheduled to laps. We would then recieve a letter stating that our premium was paid after the laps date and we were no longer covered. We would then have to send them a copy of our check showing they cashed it long before the laps of the policy. They would then reinstate the policy. This is now the norm with trying to keep our ploicy active. They now hold the check until 1 day before laps and then post it 2 days after laps. We now have to send our payments by overnight fed ex or return reciept in order to keep them from lapsing our policies.