Riders are additional benefits and features that you can purchase to add to a new life insurance policy. Two things worth noting in terms of background here — generally riders must be added at the time of policy issue, and note that the riders come with a cost; you don't get the additional benefits the rider provides for free. For a list of policy features that are 'free', see our article on best term life insurance.
With that being said, here's a reasonably comprehensive list of term life insurance riders, along with a description and my opinion of them.
Spousal rider — Yes
This is just adding coverage for a second person on top of your basic coverage. The net effect in terms of coverage is the same as having two separate policies, but you save one policy administration fee by only having one policy. We absolutely recommend this as a cost savings choice. It's one of the five discounts we review with every client.
Term rider — Yes
Like spousal rider, but the additional coverage is for the base or primary insured. It's used to add different types of coverage into one policy i.e. if you want some term 20 coverage and some term 10 coverage rather than having two policies we would start with base coverage of term 20 and add a term 10 rider. That saves a policy fee so this is used as a cost savings choice. If you're doing term layering, we would use term riders to create the cost-optimal policy.
Disability waiver of premium — Pass
This rider provides long term disability coverage for your life insurance policy premiums. If you are completely disabled, then after 6 months this benefit would kick in and pay your insurance premiums. Sort of the right idea but two drawbacks. First, you should have proper longterm disability insurance to cover your entire income rather than just small pieces of it. Secondly, the definition of disability is extremely restrictive. So while it's a nice to have, we don't recommend it and instead recommend that you have a comprehensive longterm disability insurance policy.
Children's Protection Rider (CPR) — Maybe
Variously called Children's Insurance Benefit, Chidlren's Term Rider. This coverage provides a small amount of life insurance for all your children, until they're adults. Some companies provide a flat amount of coverage for all children at a specified premium (i.e. $10/month for all children for $10K) others charge per child. The coverage lasts until they're adults at which point they often have the choice to transition their policy into permanent/whole life coverage often as some multiple of the base coverage. So if they have $10k of CPR, they may be able to qualify for $50K of whole life without a medical exam (though this transition is generally done at smoker rates for the child at that time even if they aren't smokers). We don't recommend or not recommend this — it's a good benefit if you want 'a small amount of inexpensive life insurance on all your children'. Otherwise, look at an individual life insurance policy for them, which can offer higher coverage amounts and additional features.
Additional Accidental Death — Pass
This benefit pays an additional death benefit amount if you die in an accident. I don't recommend this. The amount of coverage you need has nothing to do with the manner of your passing — you don't need $1MM if you pass from a heart attack but $1.5MM if you pass in a car accident. Get the right amount of coverage, skip the Accidental Death.
Guaranteed Insurability Option — Maybe
This benefit guarantees you the ability to purchase additional life insurance in the future with no health requirements at that time. You pay a premium for this benefit — you're paying now for the option to purchase additional insurance in the future, for an additional premium at that time. This is used in niche/edge cases for example if you expect your income to increase substantially in the future. Otherwise it's not an option worth considering for most people.
Critical Illness Insurance / Living Benefits Rider — Pass
This rider basically adds a critical illness policy to your life insurance policy. The only real benefit to this is that you save an admin fee — so you might save $3-$5/month by combining coverage this way. But in practice, you may be paying more than what you're saving. If your life insurance company offers a $5 saving on a $40/month critical illness policy when attached as a rider — but another company offers the same coverage but at $34/month, well then you're paying for a rider that you could get cheaper. The only real benefit is that if you get your life and critical illness coverage at one company then you can often do just one medical health questionnaire instead of two. That benefit is real, but we recommend instead starting by making sure you have the right critical illness coverage and then go from there instead of starting from what is basically an upsell of 'do you want critical illness with that?'.
Summary
That's an overview of all the common riders available on term life insurance policies in Canada. Again, riders are policy benefits that you pay extra for. There are a variety of policy benefits that are free — they are either included or not included, and it varies by company. A list of those policy benefits are shown in our article on Best Term Life Insurance.