My policy is not performing the way it was illustrated. What happened?
Usually one of four ordinary things, and often more than one at once. The scale declared each year came down. A deposit the design relied on was never made. An amount was drawn against the contract and left outstanding. Or the option directing what is declared was switched at some point. None of the four touches the guaranteed schedule underneath.
What kind of answer this is
- Claim type: Contract fact
- Claim type: Depends on the policy
- Jurisdiction: Contract dependent
That these four inputs drive the outcome is a contract fact. Which of them applies to your contract is answered only by your own records and the insurer's.
How it works
A projection is arithmetic on inputs. Change an input and the output changes, and each of the four moves independently of the others. Separating them is ordinary work: the insurer can state what was received and what was declared, and your own file states what you signed.
The cost or the catch
The gap is often blamed on the product when the cause was a deposit that stopped in year three. That matters, because the remedy differs with the cause and one of them is free. Deciding before the cause is identified is how a contract that was working gets ended.
Where this answer may not apply
- There is a fifth possibility, which is that the original document was optimistic or was misread, and it is worth considering rather than assuming away.
- An administrative error is uncommon but not unknown, and it is found by comparing the change forms you signed against what the insurer recorded.
- A contract issued in a different rate environment cannot be judged against one issued today, and the comparison is frequently made anyway.
- None of this decides whether to keep the contract, which depends on what it would cost to replace what it does.
What to verify in your own contract
- The scale in effect at issue and the scale in effect now, obtained from the insurer rather than inferred.
- Every deposit actually received, year by year, against the schedule the design assumed.
- The advanced balance and the interest charged on it since the day it was taken.
- The dividend option recorded today, and the date of any change to it.
- The guaranteed values printed at issue against the guaranteed values today, which should match.
Continue to the full explanation
Use the illustration reading guide.
Sources
- Policy contract, dividend option and premium records, insurer specific, verified 2026-08-30
- Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, illustration guidelines, verified 2026-08-30
Accountability and disclosure
- Written by
- José Salloum
- Professional capacity
- Financial security advisor, Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc., operating as IBC Financial
- Reviewed by
- Insurance and contract education tier, reviewed under a licensed insurance professional's own authority
- Jurisdiction
- Contract dependent
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-30
- Version
- 1.0
- Compensation disclosure
- Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc., operating as IBC Financial, may receive insurer paid compensation if a policy is purchased. It takes the form of first year compensation followed by renewal compensation, and the amount varies by insurer, product, age, premium, contract design, riders and the arrangement with the managing general agency. No single figure would describe every contract honestly, and none is published here.
- Report a correction
- Info@ibcfinancial.com. Write without a policy number, medical information or account details.
Last reviewed 2026-08-30. By Jose Salloum, Financial Security Advisor.