Hi D...j,
I too believe you can retain your e-mail a/c as they advertise getting a free a/c no matter which ISP you're with.
If you have mission critical e-mail addresses, might I suggest you back them up rapidly, whatever else you choose to do ?
You can do so by using AOL webmail from
www.aol.com, sign in, select e-mail, select contacts, click on tools and export as say a CSV file.
The result will be an Excel file downloaded to your computer.
Kind regards,
Walter