What kind of life insurance is that? If it is universial insurance and you cancel your subscription, you need to pay the penalty (This happens to all the insurance companies, not only transAmerica. When I cancelled my universal life insurance with SunLife (previously Clarica), I paid $250 penalty as well. I also lost some of my cash value.
The best thing is to have 10-year or 20-year term insurance and you can cancel any time. For universal life insurance, you pay a lot in premium.
For the same amount of coverage, I paid around $600 for Sunlife universal life insurance every year + around $600 for investment). Now I only pay less than $300 every year for the term insurance (10-year term) with TransAmerica.