What type of insurance is this? does it still exist?

I'm not sure this is what he had but I work as an agent for a life insurance company and we have a term life policy that is similar. It's called "return of premium" (ROP) and basically how it works is you attach the "ROP" rider to a regular term policy and at the end of the term (10 to 30 years) you receive all of your premiums back minus the cost of the rider. There usually ends up being a good amount returned these days probably more than 10k. Because there is no money gained you would also receive it all tax free. You could do whatever you want with it. But if you should die during the term of the policy the "death benefit" is paid out to your beneficiary.