Unexpected events can knock your financial plans off course. Protect your future and meet your goals with the right amounts and types of insurance for your needs.

Life Coverage

The emotional impact of losing a family member is immeasurable and deeply profound. While we cannot diminish this emotional pain, we can offer support to alleviate the financial burdens that accompany such a loss.

Life insurance serves as a critical tool for providing your family with financial security after you're gone. It’s important to assess your financial needs and the lifestyle you wish to secure for your family before choosing a life insurance plan.

Our discussions around your estate plan will cover crucial aspects like replacing lost income, paying off mortgages and debts, handling final expenses, funding educational pursuits, and establishing a legacy for your loved ones.

As family circumstances and needs evolve, so does the need for different types of life insurance coverage. We are here to explore these options with you, ensuring that your coverage meets your changing requirements.

Income Replacement

For many of us, the greatest asset we possess is our ability to work and provide for our families over the years. This dependency on earned income to cover daily living and lifestyle expenses present a significant financial risk should we become unable to work.

Disability can strike unexpectedly, severely impacting your financial objectives by reducing your household income. This reduction can compromise your ability to save and repay debts, leading to a shortfall in achieving your financial goals.

To formulate a robust plan, we start by assessing your essential income needs along with potential benefits from the Canada Pension Disability and/or Group coverage. This allows us to establish a personal benchmark tailored to your circumstances. Typically, benefits are distributed monthly to help maintain your standard of living and manage ongoing expenses.

A tailored income replacement plan is crucial. It ensures that families can stay in their homes, supports children's education through university, manages mortgages and debts, and keeps retirement plans progressing smoothly.

Serious Illness

Experiencing a severe illness or disease can severely impact both your emotional well-being and financial stability. When health issues prevent you from working, the inability to afford basic necessities or essential medical treatments can intensify your financial and health-related stress.

To mitigate the financial burden during such challenging times, critical illness protection offers a distinct advantage. This type of coverage provides a tax-free, lump sum payment upon diagnosis of a qualifying serious illness, unlike income replacement plans. You can use this benefit flexibly to cover anything from family visits and home modifications to medical treatments and even a final vacation with loved ones.

Critical illness coverage primarily addresses conditions like heart attacks, strokes, and cancer, although it extends to other significant health issues based on your policy’s specifics. These plans are designed to alleviate financial pressures, allowing you to concentrate on your recovery and spending precious time with family and friends, without the added worry of unforeseen medical expenses.

Long Term Care

Safeguarding your financial goals includes planning for the potential costs of long-term care. As life expectancy increases, the likelihood of needing long-term care in later years becomes a significant concern for your estate. The expenses associated with care in a facility or specialized treatments at home can be considerable and are generally not fully covered by provincial health plans.

Long-term care insurance is designed to cover these costs, helping to preserve your assets. It typically provides a weekly benefit once you meet the criteria, which usually involves the inability to perform at least two activities of daily living or having cognitive impairments.

We invite you to have a discussion about your health care planning, including the costs and coverage options during retirement. Please feel free to contact us to begin this important conversation.

While the majority of critical illness claims are for diagnoses like heart attacks, strokes, and cancer, these plans also cover other health conditions based on the specifics of your policy. This coverage ensures that you can concentrate on recovery and spending time with loved ones, rather than being concerned about financial stability amid rising health care costs.

Health and Dental

Both personal and group extended health and dental plans are available to complement your MSP coverage, tailored to meet your specific needs.

These additional plans enhance your basic health insurance by covering costs that often come as unexpected expenses. They can help manage payments for services like dental care, prescriptions, eye care, chiropractic treatments, therapy, and more, depending on what your plan includes.

A practical first step in exploring these options is to assess your current medical expenses and decide the type and level of coverage you're looking for. This evaluation helps us tailor a plan that effectively addresses your healthcare needs.

Private Health Service Plans

For incorporated businesses, we can set up Health Care Spending Accounts (HSA) which offers a cost-effective solution for covering medical, dental and other expenses for both you and your employees.

These plans enable you to channel these expenditures through your company, transforming them into tax-deductible expenses. They provide flexibility in how you allocate your healthcare budget, with no health qualifications or waiting periods required to initiate the plan. This is a form of self-insuring therefore avoiding insurance company loss ratios and worrying about large premium increases each year due to poor claims experience. Here you pay for what you use only.

HSA’s can serve as a strategic tool to enhance your after-tax income, making them an excellent addition to your financial strategy.

Travel Insurance

Before heading out on a trip beyond your province, ensure you're equipped with travel health insurance. As our client, you gain access via IPC Travel through SecuriGlobe, a premier advisor in the travel insurance sector.

SecuriGlobe specializes in providing services in the retiree and snowbird market, and is recognized by the most competitive insurers in Canada. This means that with just one phone call, you can compare the products and rates of 15 top insurers, simplifying your selection process and ensuring you get the best coverage for your needs.

Travel Insurance Products Include:

  • Single trip daily plans
  • Multi-trip annual plans
  • Canada-only plans
  • Emergency medical, paramedical or hospital care
  • Baggage insurance (loss or delay)
  • Trip cancellation or interruption
  • Coverage for expatriates, foreign students, or visitors to Canada
  • Special risks insurance
  • Accident and flight accident insurance (death or dismemberment)

What Banks Don't Want You to Know About Creditor Mortgage Life Insurance

Did you know these facts about mortgage and creditor insurance offered by banks and trust companies?

  1. Age-Banded Rates: Your premiums might increase as you age, with quoted rates possibly valid for only one year.
  2. Non-Guaranteed Rates: These insurance programs do not offer contractually guaranteed rates. The insurer can raise rates at any time based on program experience, carrier expenses, market interest rates, and other factors.
  3. Cancellation Risk: The program can be canceled with just thirty days' notice, potentially leaving you without mortgage life insurance.
  4. Coverage Loss with Mortgage Transfer: If you switch your mortgage to another lender for better rates, your coverage ends, possibly leaving you uninsured.
  5. No Lump Sum Option: Creditor mortgage insurance does not allow taking the death benefit as a lump sum, preventing you from investing the cash if it’s more beneficial than paying off the mortgage.
  6. Coverage Ends with Mortgage: This insurance does not let you keep coverage after paying off the mortgage.
  7. No Legal Contract: Unlike individual term life insurance, creditor mortgage insurance is not a legal contract that only you can terminate.
  8. Spouse Coverage Ends: If one spouse dies, the other is no longer insured automatically.
  9. Early Mortgage Retirement Penalty: Paying off a mortgage early incurs a penalty (typically three months' interest), which creditor mortgage insurance does not cover, but individual term policies do.
  10. Impaired Risks Denial: Creditor life insurance denies coverage if any health question is answered “yes,” with no additional underwriting. Individual policies investigate further and often offer coverage at a slightly higher premium.

Recommended Action

Typically we recommend purchasing Term Life Coverage for your mortgage in case of premature death, but not always. Everyone’s situation is different and in some cases a combination of term and permanent may suit your needs better.

Advantages of Term Life Insurance:

  1. Consistent Premiums: Premiums remain consistent for the policy term.
  2. Stable Coverage: Coverage does not decrease as you pay down your mortgage.
  3. Beneficiary Flexibility: Beneficiaries can choose to pay off the mortgage or invest the money.
  4. Coverage continues even after the mortgage is paid off.
  5. Only you can cancel the policy, not the institution.
  6. Full underwriting is done before issuing the policy.
  7. Spouse Coverage: If one spouse dies, the other remains insured if policies are purchased on each life.

Advantages of Permanent Life Insurance:

  1. Level Premiums: premiums remain level for the life of the policy
  2. Increasing Coverage: coverage can actually increase over time depending on the type of permanent coverage you purchase.
  3. Equity buildup: some permanent policies have a cash value that grows each year and builds equity in your policy over time that you can access while you are living.
  4. Beneficiary Flexibility: same advantages as Term Life above
  5. Policy Control: again advantages mirror the Term Life above
  6. Thorough Underwriting: as per above this is all done in advance.
  7. Spouse Coverage: if a Joint policy with a spouse, they will have the opportunity to secure their own coverage if needed after one spouse dies. If individual policies are taken then as per above one death doesn’t impact the surviving spouse’s coverage.

Free Quotes

For a Free Quote, please call us @ 905-640-5770 or e-mail sherry@rprowealth.com

*Insurance products available through Gregory Roberts.