Equitable Life Insurance Review 2025
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Equitable
on Nerdwallet
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
NAIC complaints
Policies offered
on Nerdwallet
Equitable
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
NAIC complaints
Policies offered
Why trust NerdWallet
About Equitable life insurance
Equitable earned 3.5 stars out of 5 for overall performance. Equitable is a large life insurance and retirement savings company. It was known as AXA Equitable until a name change in 2020. It’s a solid option for life insurance shoppers, offering a wide range of term and permanent life insurance policies, along with other financial products.
Received fewer complaints than expected for a company its size.
Offers a wide range of term life options.
No permanent life insurance options with fixed rates.
» MORE: Compare life insurance quotes
Equitable life insurance policies
Term life insurance. Equitable offers four types of term life insurance:
Level term life. You can choose terms of 10, 15 or 20 years, with coverage starting at $1 million.
Annual renewable term life. This policy can be renewed annually without reapplying for coverage, but the price increases each year. The minimum death benefit is $1 million.
TermOne. Coverage is non-renewable and expires after one year. The minimum death benefit is $25,000.
Term-in-10. Qualifying applicants can be issued policies within minutes. You can choose a term length of 10, 15 or 20 years, and must be from 18 to 60 years old to apply. The maximum coverage amount is $1 million, or $500,000 for people under the age of 21.
All of the company’s term life policies are convertible to permanent life insurance.
Permanent life insurance. Equitable offers indexed universal life and variable universal life insurance policies. It also offers a variable universal life survivorship policy. Survivorship policies insure two people — usually a married couple — under one policy. The death benefit is paid out when the second person dies.
» MORE: Joint life insurance
Equitable life insurance riders
Equitable adds an accelerated death benefit rider to most policies at no extra charge. Depending on the type of policy you buy, you may also have the option to add a children’s term rider or disability premium waiver rider to your coverage.
Equitable customer complaints and satisfaction
Over three years, Equitable has drawn fewer than the expected number of complaints to state regulators for a company of its size, according to NerdWallet’s analysis of data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
» MORE: Best life insurance companies
What it’s like to apply for a policy with Equitable
You’ll need to work with a financial professional to apply for any life insurance policy with Equitable. Even the Term-in-10 policy, which you can apply for and buy online within a few minutes, requires you first to speak with an advisor, who will give you a link to the online application.
Screenshot captured by our editorial team on November 20, 2024.
How Equitable’s customer experience stacks up
The Equitable website has useful information about the company’s life insurance policies, including a table summing up basic differences between coverage types. But it can be tricky to find the company’s contact information, as the “customer support” menu has quite a few options and the navigation isn’t always intuitive. Some life insurance pages link to the “find a financial professional” page, offering a phone number you can call to set up a consultation.
We called the insurer to ask a few questions about term life insurance. We had some trouble with the automated system, which asked for a policy number. Because we didn’t have one, we were placed in a queue with an estimated wait time of up to 15 minutes. We gave up and called again a few days later with a similar result.
Equitable has a mobile app for Apple and Android that you can use to manage your account and see your financial advisor’s contact information. The app draws mixed reviews, with some users reporting slowness and bugs.
More about Equitable
In addition to life insurance, Equitable offers annuities, workplace retirement plans and employee benefit plans, which include critical illness and hospital indemnity insurance.
How to contact Equitable
Equitable can be reached by:
Phone: Call 800-777-6510 Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET and Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET.
Email: No customer service email available.
Live chat: Not available.
Life insurance buying guide
Before you start comparing companies, choose the type of life insurance you want, such as term or whole life. Decide which life insurance riders, if any, you want the policy to include. Calculate how much life insurance you need and how long you want the coverage to last. Check that the insurers you’re considering offer the coverage you’re looking for.
When comparing rates, be sure the quotes are for the same amount of coverage over the same period of time. It’s also important to make sure the policy’s medical requirements match your needs. For example, if you want to skip the life insurance medical exam but don’t mind answering health questions, confirm that the application process for each policy you're comparing aligns with that.
Price may not be the biggest driver behind your decision to buy. Look at the number of consumer complaints each company receives, as high numbers can be a red flag about the quality of service.
For more guidance, see our life insurance buying guide.
Methodology
Life insurance ratings methodology
NerdWallet’s life insurance ratings are based on consumer experience, complaint index scores from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners for individual life insurance, and weighted averages of financial strength ratings, which indicate a company’s ability to pay future claims. Within the consumer experience category, we consider ease of communication and website transparency, which looks at the depth of policy details available online. To calculate each insurer’s rating, we adjusted the scores to a curved 5-point scale.
These ratings are a guide, but we encourage you to shop around and compare several insurance quotes to find the best rate for you. NerdWallet does not receive compensation for any reviews. Read our editorial guidelines.
Insurer complaints methodology
NerdWallet examined complaints received by state insurance regulators and reported to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 2021-2023. To assess how insurers compare with one another, the NAIC calculates a complaint index each year for each subsidiary, measuring its share of total complaints relative to its size, or share of total premiums in the industry. To evaluate a company’s complaint history, NerdWallet calculated a similar index for each insurer, weighted by market shares of each subsidiary, over the three-year period. NerdWallet conducts its data analysis and reaches conclusions independently and without the endorsement of the NAIC. Ratios are determined separately for auto, home (including renters and condo) and life insurance.
