Looking into Equitable Life Insurance reviews? We did the digging so you don’t have to.
Not all life insurance companies are created equal, so the real question isn’t whether Equitable Life is good; it’s whether they’re the right insurer for you.
Some companies are more lenient on specific medical conditions than others, and some should be avoided altogether. Here’s where Equitable Life actually stands.
Does Equitable Life Have a Strong Foundation?
Equitable Life of Canada has been around since 1920, founded by Sydney Tweed out of a two-room office in Waterloo, Ontario. Depressions, world wars, and a century of market cycles later, they’re still standing, and growing faster than ever.
Equitable Life Is a Mutual Company
Equitable is Canada’s largest federally regulated mutual life insurance company. That means policyholders, not outside shareholders, own the company and share in its profits, across insurance, wealth management, and group benefits. This structure lets Equitable focus on long-term policyholder interests instead of quarterly shareholder pressure, and it tends to show up in stronger dividends over time.
2025 was a genuinely strong year for them: assets under administration hit $12.7 billion, up 24% from the year before, and they paid out $176 million in dividends to participating whole life policyholders… a 28% increase over 2024. Net income came in at $180 million, with return on policyholders’ equity at 11%
Throughout 2025, Equitable delivered on its commitments to our clients, our partners, our communities, and each other in measurable and meaningful ways… for the third consecutive year, we've experienced tremendous growth across the organization.
Fabien Jeudy, President & CEO — Equitable
What Do Equitable Life Insurance Reviews Say Online?
Equitable Life Is a Success Story
Since I started this series, I’ve noticed something consistent: negative comments tend to outnumber positive ones online, across almost every insurer I review.
There are two ways to read that. Either every life insurance company is doing a poor job, with a couple of rare exceptions… or people making claims are stressed and running low on patience, and that shows in how they write.
For me, it’s somewhere in the middle. People love to complain; it’s human nature. You’re far more likely to leave a review after a bad experience than a good one. Only about 1.5% of customers leave reviews at all, so the ones who do skew toward the extremes.
On Insureye, Equitable Life currently sits at 2.3 out of 5 stars across 14 reviews, on the lower end, though the sample size is small enough that a handful of reviews can swing the average significantly.
What do employees think?
Equitable Life is rated 3.6 out of 5 by employees on Glassdoor and 3.8. Those are solid scores, and they matter. A company that treats its own people well tends to show it in how it treats clients, especially at the claims desk.
With $12.7 billion in assets under administration and over 1.2 million clients, the company’s momentum is real, not just marketing language… premiums and deposits nearly doubled over the past three years to reach $4.3 billion in 2025 alone.
What's Their Financial Rating?
Financial ratings matter because they tell you how likely a company is to actually be there when your beneficiaries need to be paid. Equitable’s capital strength, measured by the LICAT ratio, sat at 159% in 2025, well above the regulator’s 100% target and among the strongest in the industry. DBRS Morningstar has rated its financial strength A.
Equitable Life of Canada Reviews: Products
If you are scouring Equitable Life Reviews, then you’ll want to check out their actual products, not just the company’s reputation. As an insurance agent, staying current on what each carrier offers is part of the job. Every company approaches things a little differently.
Equitable Life of Canada offers Term Life, Participating Whole Life, Universal Life, and Critical Illness insurance. Compared to some carriers I’ve reviewed, that’s a smaller lineup… and I actually think that’s a point in their favor. A tighter product shelf usually means a company isn’t spreading itself too thin. You may see it differently, and that’s fair. Let’s walk through what they offer.
New to some of these terms? My Life Insurance Basics 101 post is a quick refresher.
Equitable Life Term Insurance
Term life insurance provides coverage for a set period, making it the most budget-friendly option for most people. Premiums stay fixed for 10, 20, or 30 years depending on the plan, and most policyholders let coverage lapse once the term ends. Canadian insurers don’t design term policies to be renewed indefinitely, since renewal rates climb sharply. Many term plans do allow conversion to permanent coverage later, for people with long-term needs or who become uninsurable. For pure income replacement against the unexpected, term is still the clearest, most cost-effective choice.
Equitable’s term lineup includes:
- 10-Year Term: renews every 10 years until age 85
- 20-Year Term: renews every 20 years until age 85
- Term 30/65: premiums are payable until the later of 30 years or age 65. For example, a 40-year-old choosing this option pays level premiums to age 70 (30 years)
Term coverage includes the standard riders, disability premium waiver, additional accidental death, and a child protection benefit, and can be bundled with an EquiLiving Critical Illness rider for broader protection.
10-Year Term
Renews every 10 years until age 85.
20-Year Term
Renews every 20 years until age 85.
Term 30/65
Premiums payable to the later of 30 years or age 65. E.g., a 40-year-old pays level premiums to age 70.
Equitable Participating Whole Life Insurance
Equimax Estate Builder
Earns annual dividends that can be paid to you, used to purchase additional coverage, or applied toward your premiums.
Equimax Wealth Accumulator
Same features as Estate Builder, built for shorter-term growth (around 20 years) through cash value and dividends. Monthly premiums run higher as a result.
Equitable Universal Life
Like whole life, it combines insurance with an investment component — but you choose how the money is invested, and you take on the risk instead of the insurer.
Equation Generation IV
Dividends may be reinvested to compound tax-deferred, used to pay premiums, borrowed against, or accessed tax-free for a disability, critical illness, or long-term care need.
Whole life is probably the best-known type of permanent life insurance. It’s also called cash-value life insurance, since it carries an investment feature alongside the insurance itself, letting you build up cash inside the policy that can later serve as extra retirement income, estate tax coverage, or straightforward wealth accumulation.
Equitable’s participating whole life policies offer guaranteed monthly costs, guaranteed cash value, and a guaranteed death benefit. As a policyholder, you also share in the company’s profits annually through dividend payments credited directly to your policy.
Equitable Life has one of the strongest participating whole life products on the Canadian market today.
Equitable Life Critical Illness Insurance
Critical illness insurance, or “CI,” has grown increasingly popular. With longer life expectancies and better medical treatment, more people survive serious illnesses than ever before; the real question is whether their finances survive along with them. As defined in your policy, CI coverage pays a one-time, tax-free lump sum when you’re diagnosed with a covered critical illness.
Critical illness insurance was invented in 1983 by Dr. Marius Barnard, a South African cardiac surgeon who was part of the team led by his brother, Dr. Christiaan Barnard, that performed the world's first human heart transplant. Marius saw the financial toll a serious illness took on his patients — even those who survived — and pushed insurers to create a policy that paid out on diagnosis, not just death.
History of Critical Illness Insurance
EquiLiving Critical Illness Insurance
Equitable’s EquiLiving Critical Illness protection is a renewable product available in Term 10 or Term to age 75. It covers 26 conditions, including heart attack, stroke, cancer, and coronary artery bypass, plus five additional childhood illnesses up to age 25. EquiLiving can be added as a rider to Term, Whole Life, or Universal Life plans.
Wondering if critical illness coverage makes sense for you? I break it down in more detail in my Critical Illness Insurance post.
Equitable Life Insurance Reviews: The Application Process
Electronic applications (“e-apps”) are now standard across the Canadian insurance market. They speed things up and keep wait times to a minimum. Most life insurance companies still take 4 to 8 weeks to process an application, so anything that shortens that timeline is worth having.
Equitable’s EZcomplete is one of the better e-apps out there. You can complete it with your advisor over the phone and sign electronically via email.
Part of the application process is figuring out how much coverage you actually need, and most people lowball this number, ending up underinsured. Age, marital status, kids, mortgage, debt: these are the questions that determine how much your family would need each month if your income disappeared tomorrow. I go through this in more detail in my How Much Life Insurance Do I Need? post… but as a starting rule of thumb, 10 to 15 times your gross salary is a reasonable target if you have a family depending on you.
Equitable Life Insurance Reviews: The Pros and Cons
No company is perfect, and Equitable Life is no exception. Here’s where they genuinely shine, and where they fall a little short.
The Pros
Excellent claims & service
Strong advisor support trickles down to how clients are treated.
Genuine digital leader
EZcomplete, InsuranceAssist, and the EZClaim app modernized a once paper-based process.
Mutual company status
Owned by policyholders, not shareholders — focused on long-term value.
Top-tier whole life product
One of the best-performing participating whole life policies in Canada.
Financial stability
A-rated by DBRS Morningstar, 159% LICAT ratio in 2025.
Aggressive underwriting
Willing to engage reinsurance partners for challenging cases.
Community-based culture
Active local sponsorships, including the Waterloo-Wellington Autism Speaks Walk.
The Cons
Too Eastern-centric
Concentrated in Kitchener-Waterloo, making Western support harder.
Limited product shelf
A smaller lineup than some competitors — though narrow focus has upsides too.
Is Equitable Life the Best Company for You?
The goal of sorting through all of the Equitable Life Insurance reviews to see if it’s the right fit for you. As one of Canada’s largest mutual life insurance companies, Equitable Life delivers real results for policyholders… strong dividends, a top-performing whole life product, and a company structure that’s accountable to clients rather than shareholders.
They’ve also modernized fast. What was a nearly all-paper process until 2014 is now one of the smoother digital experiences in the industry, and their 2025 financials back up the confidence: record growth, a strong LICAT ratio, and an A rating from DBRS Morningstar.
Where they fall short is geography and product breadth. If you’re in Western Canada or want a carrier with a sprawling product catalogue, that’s worth weighing. For most people considering permanent insurance, though, Equitable Life belongs on your shortlist.
As always: get quotes from Equitable and a few other carriers before you decide. The right insurer depends on your health, your goals, and your budget, not just one company’s reputation.
Why Talk to Policy Architects Today
Not all life insurance companies are created equal, and Equitable Life is just one option among many worth considering. As an independent brokerage, we’re not tied to Equitable or anyone else. Our job is finding you the right fit, not pushing one company’s product.
Give us a call. We’ll help you compare Equitable against other top Canadian insurers and figure out whether their whole life or universal life products actually make sense for your situation.
