Equitable IUL Review (2026)

Equitable at a glance: who stands behind the policy

Equitable has sold life insurance and retirement products since 1859. Its life policies are issued by two companies, and which one you get depends on where you live:

• Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company, domiciled in New York and regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services, issues policies in New York and Puerto Rico.
• Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company of America (Equitable America), domiciled in Arizona, with an administrative office in Charlotte, North Carolina, issues policies everywhere else.

Both belong to Equitable Holdings, Inc., which trades on the New York Stock Exchange as EQH. The company's history explains the name many people still remember. Equitable Financial demutualized in 1992, meaning it converted from a policyholder-owned mutual to a stock company. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of the French insurer AXA until its initial public offering in May 2018. AXA then sold down its stake, and in 2020 the company dropped "AXA" from its legal names and rebranded as Equitable. Equitable Holdings also owns a majority of the asset manager AllianceBernstein, and reported $1.1 trillion in assets under management and administration at the end of 2025.

The Corebridge merger

On March 26, 2026, Equitable Holdings agreed to an all-stock merger with Corebridge Financial, another large U.S. life and retirement insurer. On July 30, 2026, the two companies announced that the required stockholder approvals had been obtained. It still needs regulatory approval and is expected to close by year-end 2026. When it closes, a new parent company named Equitable Holdings will own both, with current Equitable stockholders holding about 49% and Corebridge stockholders about 51%.

For policy owners, Equitable's merger FAQ is direct: existing policies stay the same, and "there are no changes to rates, fees or premiums as a result of the merger," nor to guarantees, riders or benefits. What the merger can change is the parent's product shelf and ratings over time. For Corebridge's side of the story, see our Corebridge IUL review. For Equitable's annuities, see our Equitable annuity review.

Two changes to its life business in 2025

Equitable's 2025 annual report describes two moves that matter to anyone buying or holding its life insurance:

1. Reinsurance with RGA. Effective April 1, 2025, Equitable ceded 75% of its in-force individual life insurance block to RGA Reinsurance Company. Assets backing the reinsured policies sit in trust accounts for Equitable's benefit. Equitable remains the insurer on every policy it reinsured, so your contract is still with Equitable. At the end of 2025 it reported $7.1 billion of IUL face amount in force, net of reinsurance.
2. A narrower sales channel. Starting in 2025, Equitable says its life products are "primarily distributed through Equitable Advisors," its own advisor network, which produced about 65% of its life sales that year. Variable universal life dominates: including corporate-owned policies, it made up $373 million of $389 million in first-year life premiums and deposits in 2025.

How strong is Equitable?

Equitable's ratings page, last updated April 1, 2026, lists the same three ratings for both issuing companies:

Equitable's quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2026 shows the same ratings, with each agency's last review dated March 2026; it does not describe the watch status. All three watches were placed within five days of the Corebridge announcement. "Developing" means AM Best could move the rating either way. CreditWatch negative and review for downgrade mean S&P and Moody's are considering a downgrade, not that one has happened. Before its merger news, S&P already had a negative outlook on Equitable, according to its 2025 annual report.

An A from AM Best is solid. It is one step below A+. The open question is where the combined company lands. Check the status on the day you apply.

A rating measures the company, not the policy. It tells you how likely Equitable is to pay claims decades from now. It says nothing about whether an IUL's caps and charges suit you.

For how we weigh ratings against other factors, see how we rate life insurance companies.

Equitable's IUL lineup

Equitable's consumer life insurance page names one indexed universal life policy. The rest of its individual lineup is variable universal life, which invests cash value in market subaccounts and carries investment risk, and term life.

BrightLife Grow is that IUL. Equitable says it is designed "to accumulate wealth, potentially produce retirement income and fund the death benefit." It offers four index options plus a Guaranteed Interest Account, a 0% floor on the index options, two death benefit options and a 10-year no-lapse guarantee included at no extra charge. Equitable says surrender charges "can run for 15 years or longer." It does not publish current caps or charges.

Equitable's 10-K also describes an in-force book that includes past-generation universal life and whole life designs it no longer actively markets. We could not confirm the names or status of earlier Equitable IULs from public documents, so we list only BrightLife Grow as current.

Index options and how interest is credited

An index account does not buy stocks. It credits interest based on how much an index rose, limited by a cap. BrightLife Grow's consumer materials list four options:

• S&P 500, 1-year term: the 500 large U.S. companies.
• Russell 2000, 1-year term: about 2,000 smaller U.S. companies.
• MSCI EAFE, 1-year term: stocks in developed markets in Europe, Australasia and the Far East.
• S&P 500, 3-year term: the same index measured over three years instead of one.

All four use price return versions of the indexes, which leave out dividends. Equitable's fact card says you get "100% of any positive returns, up to a Growth Cap Rate," with a 0% floor against index losses. The brochure says Equitable can change the cap and participation rate "for new indexed options," but not below the minimums stated in the policy. It does not publish those minimums or current caps. The 10.5% cap in its brochure is labeled a hypothetical example.

Plain, familiar indexes are a real plus. Some IULs use custom volatility-controlled indexes that are harder to judge; see volatility-controlled indexes. The tradeoff is that simple capped designs rely heavily on the cap, and Equitable does not publish its caps.

The Guaranteed Interest Account credits a rate Equitable sets, guaranteed never to fall below 2%.

Remember what a 0% floor protects: the interest credit, not your cash value. Cost of insurance and other charges come out every month, so in a flat or down year your cash value can fall. Our guide to IUL cap rates explains how to weigh caps against charges.

How Equitable treats existing policyholders

This is the section that matters most, because you will own an IUL for decades after the sale. We looked at caps on existing policies, cost of insurance charges, and lawsuits and regulatory actions.

Cap history

Equitable does not publish a history of the caps it has declared on BrightLife Grow or its older IULs, and we found none in its public filings. That means you cannot check its record on renewal caps the way you can with a few carriers that post their history. Ask for the caps on your index options at issue and for each of the last several years. The cap in any illustration is a current rate, not a promise.

The 2016 cost of insurance increase

The cost of insurance is the monthly charge for the death benefit. A carrier raising it on existing policies is one of the biggest risks in universal life, and Equitable did it.

According to Equitable's annual reports, in early 2016 the company raised cost of insurance rates on certain universal life policies issued to insureds who were 70 or older at issue, with a face amount of $1 million or more. Its 2023 report describes the policies as issued between 2004 and 2008; its 2020 report said 2004 to 2007. These were not IULs. The policy in the New York case described below was an Athena Universal Life II.

The New York Court of Appeals decision in one of the cases shows what that meant for one owner. A trust bought a $2 million Athena Universal Life II policy in 2007 on an 82-year-old. Equitable announced the new rate scale in late 2015 and, by its own account, the monthly charge on that policy would rise from about $7,000 to about $10,500. After four months, the trust surrendered "under protest" and received $412,688.01 after a $35,586.49 surrender charge. The new charges stayed below the policy's guaranteed maximums, which is why an increase like this can be legal at all.

Lawsuits and regulatory actions

• Brach Family Foundation class action (settled). Filed in February 2016 in federal court in Manhattan (No. 1:16-cv-00740) on behalf of owners of policies hit by the increase. In August 2020 the court certified nationwide classes for breach of contract and for misrepresentation under New York Insurance Law Section 4226. Equitable and the class agreed to settle in May 2023. The court approved the settlement on October 17, 2023 and entered final judgment on October 25, 2023. Its fee order awarded class counsel $101.1 million, which the court described as one-third of the cash settlement fund net of expenses and 21.5% of the total value of the settlement's benefits. Equitable says it was fully accrued for the settlement and has also settled most claims from owners who opted out.
• Hobish v. AXA Equitable (New York state court). The trust described above sued over the same increase. On January 14, 2025, New York's highest court held that the policy term allowing increases "equitable to all policyholders of a given class" was ambiguous, so the owners could not win on summary judgment. It also upheld the dismissal of their claim to the full $2 million death benefit, since the trust chose to surrender, and rejected their punitive damages demands. Equitable's 2025 annual report no longer lists the case, and we did not find a final outcome.
• SEC fee disclosure case (2022). The SEC charged Equitable Financial with sending about 1.4 million variable annuity investors, most of them public school teachers and staff, account statements that gave a false impression of the fees they paid, since at least 2016. Without admitting or denying the findings, Equitable paid a $50 million penalty for distribution to harmed investors. It involved annuities, not life insurance, but it speaks to how the company communicates with customers.

The lesson from the cost of insurance fight applies to every carrier: a universal life contract lets the insurer raise charges up to the guaranteed maximums in the policy. We found no public record of Equitable raising cost of insurance rates on its IULs. We have not completed a state-by-state review of regulatory actions, so we make no claim either way beyond this. Our guide to IUL lawsuits covers the wider industry picture.

Riders and living benefits

BrightLife Grow's consumer brochure and fact card list these riders. All have limitations, and several cost extra.

• Long-Term Care Services Rider (extra charge): pays part of the death benefit early for qualified long-term care expenses. Monthly payments can be up to 3% of the death benefit when payments begin. You must qualify medically for the rider separately from the policy, and it cannot be combined with the return of premium rider. Payments reduce the death benefit. See IUL long-term care riders.
• No-Lapse Guarantee Rider (included): keeps the policy in force for 10 years or to age 90, whichever comes first, if required premiums are paid and loans do not exceed the account value. It drops to 5 years if you add the return of premium rider.
• Charitable Legacy Rider (no charge): adds a benefit of 1% of the base face amount, up to $100,000, for up to two qualified charities.
• Cash Value Plus Rider (extra charge): reduces the surrender charge, and may partly refund some deductions, if you surrender in the first 8 policy years.
• Return of Premium Death Benefit Rider (extra charge): adds a death benefit equal to a percentage of premiums paid.
• Disability waiver, children's term and an option to buy more coverage without new medical evidence on set dates (all extra charge).

See IUL living benefits.

Underwriting and service

Equitable does not describe an accelerated or no-exam path for BrightLife Grow in its consumer materials, and it does not publish its underwriting requirements. Ask what medical and financial evidence it will need for your age and amount. Any later increase in coverage may require new underwriting, and the long-term care rider has its own medical qualification. See IUL underwriting.

Some older universal life policies are serviced from a separate center in Lynchburg, Virginia; Equitable's customer service page lists which account numbers go where.

Who Equitable fits, and who should look elsewhere

Equitable is worth considering if you:

• Want an IUL from a large, long-established insurer and are comfortable with an A rating that is under review.
• Prefer plain index options, including small-company and international indexes, over custom volatility-controlled ones.
• Want a long-term care rider on the policy and a 2% minimum on the fixed account.
• Already work with an Equitable financial professional, since that is now its main sales channel.

Look elsewhere if you:

• Want an A+ carrier, or a rating that is not on watch. Wait for the merger to close, or choose a carrier with stable ratings.
• Want to compare published caps and charges before you sit down with anyone. Equitable does not post them.
• Might need your money in the first 15 years. Surrender charges run at least that long.
• Mainly want the cheapest permanent death benefit. Term or guaranteed universal life may cost less. See who should not buy IUL.

A word on taxes, since IUL is often sold on them. Income from an IUL usually comes from withdrawals up to your premiums paid and from policy loans. Both are tax-free only while the policy stays in force and is not a modified endowment contract. If the policy lapses or is surrendered with a loan outstanding, the loan can be treated as a taxable distribution in a single year. Our IUL taxes guide walks through the rules.

To compare Equitable with other carriers, start with our list of the best IUL companies.