Without a specific income, as is the case with a stay at home mother or father, how do we determine the proper amount and type of life insurance?

Renewable and Convertible are two options available on most (but not all) term life insurance policies in Canada. These two options are always found together, and are provided for in the policy contract at no additional cost.  

There are two types of life insurance in Canada: Term Life insurance and Permanent Life Insurance. Term life insurance is often used for needs that may span decades, but eventually no further life insurance is needed (mortgages, family needs, etc).

Whole life insurance is the appropriate type of life insurance for needs that are permanent – they exist no matter how old you are when you pass. Examples would be estate creation or final expenses.

If you’re asking whether you’ll qualify for preferred vs standard life insurance premiums, the answer is – we don’t know (and neither does any life insurance broker). There are however some things we can do in order to mildly increase your chances.

There really isn’t any ‘worst’ life insurance company in Canada. There are a variety of attributes where some companies are mildly better than others, and there are a few things you can do that are under your control that can help improve your experience with any life insurance company in Canada.

Do you qualify at smoking rates on your life insurance? Is there any way to get around these higher premiums? What about marijuana smoking? Or Vaping? We’ll answer all these questions in this article, and show you some strategies to reduce your premiums.

This life insurance strategy is becoming more commonplace in the industry. You should be aware that the strategy is an excellent retirement savings strategy in some instances – and entirely inappropriate in other instances. If you have not maximized your RRSP’s and TFSA’s already, then this strategy is not likely appropriate for you.

The exchange option lets you trade your existing term life insurance policy for a new, longer term policy. You can consider this as ‘resetting’ your term to a new policy. The reset is done at premiums based on your age when you do the exchange.

Life insurance medical exams are not really ‘exams’ and aren’t as intrusive as you might expect. They’re intended as data collection so that the insurance underwriter can evaluate and eliminate risk factors – not as a tool to pass a judgement on your health so they can deny coverage. They’re also not an exam, as they’re not pass-fail. 

Layering of life insurance policies is a strategy that can allow you to inexpensively decrease your coverage over time. The motivation is that you may consider that you need $1,000,000 of coverage for the next 10 years, and then only need $500,000 of coverage for the following 10 years. Layering of policies allows you to accomplish this.

Term stacking is a new term life insurance strategy developed here at The Term Guy. It takes advantage of some unique pricing structures in one company’s term life insurance policies (but can sometimes be extended into other companies’ term life insurance policies as well), along with a common term life insurance benefit – the exchange option.