Equitable Life of Canada Life Insurance Reviews

We returned from a trip last Friday and were shocked to find a letter dated June 5th from Equitable Life informing us that our life insurance policy had lapsed due to underfunding of "monthly administration charges".
We were further informed that our $165 monthly payments (referred to as "premiums" in the sales pitch and on the policy), were now $438 a month and a "shortage" amount of $1029 is owed by June 28th or we would be required to apply for reinstatement. The reinstatement would require us to requalify for life insurance on the basis of good health to the company's satisfaction.
We signed on to this Equation Universal Life policy on the advice of a so called financial advisor, who had been referred to us by a mortgage broker, due to our need at the time for mortgage insurance on an $80,000 mortgage. We still have the
We were 33 and 37 years old when we began with Equitable life, and we have paid $41,580 over 21 years for a $250000 insurance policy.
Having dutifully paid our premiums over 21 years, up to and including May 30, we are stunned to find ourselves suddenly uninsured with little time to react and come to grips with a staggering 165% premium increase.
We were a simple hardworking Canadian family in 1996 just trying to do the right thing in purchasing insurance. We didn't sign on to play the stock market, and we are not trained or well versed in financial matters. We trusted the experts and just kept on paying our premiums.
Given our evident longstanding loyalty, I am surprised that no financial advisor or customer service representative affiliated with our account bothered to contact us or otherwise give us advance notice of our looming situation.
We certainly were contacted with additional accident insurance offers from time to time.
To me, this appears to be a sort of constructive cancellation of our policy.
I contacted an Equitable Life Individual customer service representative on June 26 to request more specific details regarding the underfunding matter and the administration charges in writing.
I provided an email address and telephone number. I have received nothing to date.
I sincerely hope that this sort of thing never happens to anyone else.

My brother in law died over 4 months ago and his wife was told today it will take a year to adjudicate the paper work on his life insurance policy. It is not a large amount but is needed to pay bills like the funeral. We don't understand. The man is dead and all paperwork is completed. What are we not understanding? Be aware of the stalling of payouts.

I tried to cancel my insurance from this company and they will not reply to my cancellation request. I had to put a stop payment block in order to stop them taking funds from my account. Will not recommend.

Tried to purchase a term Life Insurance with The Equitable. Despite sending a nurse who did a detailed health evaluation (including blood-work), they requested additional information to my Dr. who took over 60 days to respond. Once Equitable got the report, they sent my file to reassurance and then came back saying I had a pending exam (just a regular physical I had pre-booked with my Dr.), so they needed to wait for those results. I tried to explain this was an ordinary annual check-up and that the nurse had already tested me for all the same stuff. Didn't matter.
I had the exam done the following week, and the day after I get a letter from the insurance company saying they were closing my file because they didn't get all the requested information.
If they manage to screw up the sign-up process, I don't want to imagine what filing a claim and getting paid must be like! Doesn't feel too equitable to me!!!