Life Insurance Ontario: Rates, Quotes, Consumer Tips

What are Ontario life insurance rates?

The chart shows a comparison of term life, whole life and universal life insurance rates that People pay for Life Insurance in Canada.

Please consider that though these are self-reported data, we found out that many consumers in Ontario are underinsured.

Life Insurance premiums will also strongly depend on number of factors – these are average premiums.

How Do Different Aspects Impact Your Life Insurance Rates?

Key questions when buying life insurance in Ontario

There are several important questions to answer before choosing Life Insurance:

1. How much coverage (e.g. $100,000 or $$2,000,000) do I need and how long (e.g. for the next 25 years to insure my mortgage vs till end of my life to ensure that my family is safe)?
2. What type of life insurance product do I need (e.g. Term Life, Whole Life, Universal Life etc.)?
3. What Life Insurance company should I choose? What is the best life insurance in Ontario? When you are getting a quote with us, we not only calculate the best rate for you based on your needs, but we also offer an opportunity to speak with an experienced adviser.This licensed insurance broker can answer all your questions, address your concerns and explain life insurance details.

Life insurance in Ontario for people with pre-existing health conditions

Even if you have pre-existing health conditions, such as heart disease, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS, depression, multiple sclerosis, obesity or any other health issues, you can still qualify for life insurance in Ontario.

Interested to know how that works?

Let us shed some light on this important topic.

In general, life insurers require two things from their future policy holders: 1. Answer a detailed insurance survey; 2. go through medical tests – both of these steps help insurers to properly assess risk before issuing a life insurance policy.

There is a shortcut called no medical life insurance, and it comes in two categories:

Simplified issue life insurance for Ontarians

This insurance comes without a medical exam, but you are required to answer a set of questions related to your health. Typical life insurance limits are $50,000 – $300,000. Find out more about no medical life insurance, simplified issue.

Guaranteed issue life insurance for Ontarians

This insurance type comes without any medical tests, and there are no questions to answer. Typical insurance limits are lower, though – you can expect coverages of up to $25,000.

Find out more here about no medical life insurance, guaranteed issue.

Life Insurance companies in Ontario

All major life insurance companies operate in Ontario. This province includes three major life insurance companies in Ontario: Sun Life, Manulife, and Canada Life (formerly Great-West Life).

There are also a plenty of mid-size companies to choose from such as Industrial Alliance, La Capitale, Assumption Life, FaithLife Financial, Protection Plan, Desjardins Life Insurance, SSQ Insurance, Wawanesa Life, The Co-operators, Empire Life, Foresters, Ivari, Humania, Primerica, and others.

Most banks also offer life insurance such as RBC Insurance, BMO Insurance, ScotiaLife Financial, and CIBC Insurance. It is important to understand that insurance is not a main product for banks and many of them have simpler insurance products as opposed to what you can get from insurance giants like Canada Life, Manulife, or Sun Life.

The last category of organizations offering life insurance would be network-based providers such as CAA Ontario or Ontario Blue Cross (Please note that Medavie Blue Cross is a different company and focuses on group insurance).

It is important not to mix insurance companies offering insurance with those who sell it – the variety here is much higher. There are also independent brokers, insurance brokerages (e.g. LSM Insurance), MGAs – managing general agents (e.g. Hub Financial), financial advisors and planners, and many more.

Life Insurance Regulation Body in Ontario

Similar to other provinces there is s regulation body in Ontario that regulates life insurance matters, Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) (former Financial Services Commission of Ontario: FSCO). It licenses and regulates insurers in the province of Ontario to ensure they comply with the law.

Link: Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA)

There is also another regulatory body for Insurance in Ontario. The Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario (RIBO) is the self-regulatory body for insurance brokers in Ontario. RIBO regulates the licensing, professional competence, ethical conduct, and insurance related financial obligations of all independent general insurance brokers in the province.

Link: The Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario (RIBO)

Life Insurance in Ontario – What you Must Know

“When you are looking at the life insurance in Ontario, which is, actually, my home province, you wanna first determine if the agent is licensed in that province – that is vitally important.

You also wanna look at what overall life insurance needs are… What are your overall life insurance needs in terms of your property. Looking at property values in Ontario – the average property value in Canada is about $480K and in Ontario it is $520 thousand but if you go into pockets like Toronto, Oakville, Mississauga, it can be much-much higher…

So a lot of these higher properties have higher mortgages. Higher mortgages means that you have a higher insurance need, so you wanna look at all your needs in terms of things like consumer debt…

Ontario is in-line with the country as a whole but you wanna factor that in to your overall life insurance needs and your disability insurance needs.

If you have a high mortgage and you have a high level of consumer debt, you gonna have high payments, you gonna need more disability insurance coverage.

You wanna look what you have at your work, what you have through your individual policies and factor all that in when determining the right amount of insurance and a good broker can really help with it.”

Life Insurance types in Ontario – What are they?

Generally, life insurance is divided into several insurance types depending on two factors: length of coverage and the ability to accumulate wealth.

So let’s break down these insurance types…

Term insurance in Ontario

This is a purely life insurance product that covers you for a pre-determined period of time. For example, term 20 would cover you for 20 years. Afterward, this insurance coverage disappears. You can renew it once your coverage ends, but typically at a higher rate. There is no wealth accumulation component.
Coverage costs: low

Whole life insurance in Ontario

This insurance types covers you for life and has a cash accumulation component. If you want to get access to these funds, you can often borrow against the cash value, or surrender your insurance policy.
Coverage costs: medium-high

Universal life insurance in Ontario

This insurance is similar to whole life insurance, but it offers a lot of flexibility around premium payments, investments details and death benefits.
Coverage costs: medium-high

Both Whole Life Insurance and Universal Life Insurance are also called permanent life insurance policies as they protect you as long as they are in place.

How Life Insurance categories exist in Ontario?

Life insurance can be also divided into different categories based on what is needed to apply for the policy:

•  Traditional Life Insurance (also called Standard Life Insurance): It comes with a medical exam/test conducted in person (e.g. by a nurse) and a long medical questionnaire. It is also called medically underwritten life insurance (you need to go the through a full process of medical evaluation).
• Medically Underwritten Traditional Life Insurance without Exam: It comes without a medical exam but with a long medical questionnaire. It is a subset of the previous insurance where an insurer believes that there is no need to conduct a medical exam (e.g. lower coverage, younger age, better health).
• No Medical Life Insurance: It always comes without a medical exam and either with a short medical questionnaire containing 3-12 questions (simplified life insurance) or without a questionnaire (guaranteed life insurance).

Find out more about these insurance types in the section “Life insurance in Ontario for people with pre-existing health conditions.”

Why do you need Life Insurance in Ontario?

Life insurance is a product that you are buying not to protect yourself, but provide financial security to you loved ones, should something happen to you.

The most frequent reasons to get life insurance in Ontario are:

1. Ensure that your family members (kids, spouse, parents) have been taken care of, should anything happen to you.
2. Ensure that your outstanding debt is paid, e.g. outstanding mortgage payments, outstanding loans and other debt so that your loved ones do not have to deal with it.
3. Take care of final expenses – that’s often a case for more senior people. They prefer not leave their loved ones with unpaid final expenses.
4. Wealth accumulation. Some insurance types offer a bundled product that consists of both insurance and a cash accumulation component. There are also some tax benefits associated with life insurance (e.g. non-taxed distributions to your beneficiaries).

What Life Insurance company should I choose?

When you are getting a quote with us, we not only calculate the best rate for you based on your needs, but we also offer an opportunity to speak with an experienced adviser.

This licensed insurance broker can answer all your questions, address your concerns and explain life insurance details.

How can you save on life insurance in ON? 10 things you must know.

1. Young means cheaper: Apply for the policy when you are young and your premiums will be lower.
2. Be healthy, save on insurance: If you are in a good health and have a good build when you apply for a life insurance policy, insurers will reward that with lower premiums. Insurance companies use a so called BMI index (body-mass index, a ratio of your height and weight) to determine your premiums.
3. Don’t drink excessively and reduce your low insurance rates: If you do not have any drinking issues, you can benefit from lower insurance rates – otherwise your premiums can increase by up to 50%. An intensive drinker would be considered somebody who drinks 3-4 beers a day.
4. Life Insurers are not the same: Though people think that all insurers are the same, that is not true. Some insurers have experience with particular health pre-conditions, others – not. Some insurers focus on simple life insurance products such as Term Life. Others work a lot with more complex product such as Whole Life and Universal Life.
5. Rounding mathematics matters: If you decide to buy a life insurance policy, make sure that your age rounds down and not up, i.e. if you are going to be 30 years old on December 31, buy the policy in the first 6 months of the year where your age is still rounded down to 29 and not 30.
6. Insurance type matters: Term insurance products have lower than initial premiums than Whole Life or Universal Life. So, if you are looking to maximize your initial coverage, choose Term.
7. Say no to guaranteed issue life policy: People with good health do not need a guaranteed issue life insurance policy (these are policies that do not require a medical exam but they cost more) – do a health check / exam and enjoy lower life insurance premiums.
8. Time goes by, driving offenses disappear (almost): If your driving record improved while you have a life insurance policy, you can review your premiums with your insurer and get them reduced (typical time for smaller offenses to come off your driving record is 3 years).
9. Avoid insurance agents: Insurance agent is not equal to insurance broker. Agents typically work for one company only and can offer only products of this company. That does not leave too many options.
10. Annual vs. monthly payments: In comparison to monthly payments, annual payments save insurers administrative costs (e.g. sending bills) and therefore they may reward you with lower premiums.

Interested in more saving tips for Life Insurance? Get an insurance quote below and connect with an experienced insurance professional to get more tips.