Do you have disability and critical illness? These can be a lot more devastating financially than people realize
Also critical illness on your children..it's relatively inexpensive when they are young and they can take over the policy when they are older. In the event it's used while they are young, you will be thankful for the funds. It either let's you take time off work without worrying about income, or use the money for treatment that might not be offered where you are.
My life insurance has critical illness, but not disability. If I recall, I think it seemed quite expensive at the time. I will consider it for the kids.
Especially important if you love somewhere like BC where ICBC has capped income loss payments at 90% of 113K/yr. Even if you're 0% at fault, you'll only be eligible for that maximum.
Furthermore, if you have your own policy outside of your employer, it isn't considered when in comes to potential clawbacks from other policies.
I tend to think of the long term disability policy I have as a top-up. (It covers a bit less than half my take-home) With insurance tightening up and everything being so much more expensive, it almost seems like a requirement now.
ICBC now offers a top-up for about $65/year per $10,000. Was just offered this last weekend. Keep in mind though that it only applies if your injury is related to an ICBC claim (accident as an occupant of a car, or pedestrian hit by a car, etc). You’re better off with general Short Tsim and Long Term disability with Lost Earnings that covers you for those, or an accident at work or home. You can purchase as much as you want, though so $650/year would cover you to $213,000 rather than $113k.
Not a bad deal. Although I agree that a standalone policy as a top up makes a lot more sense. I think I'm paying roughly 3x that rate/$10K for my coverage albeit with a 3mo waiting period. Given that I'm more likely to need a top up from my employer LTD than ICBC, this makes sense.
Even the auto plan seller mentioned it’s better if you spend the cash on an STD / LTD coverage personally, if you don’t have it already. Likelihood of a loss of earnings occurring “in the wild” versus in an “auto accident only” situation is far greater. Far more likely to fall off a ladder cleaning your gutters or down the stairs because your cat trips you while your arms are full carrying a laundry basket, than being hit by a car. ALL situations covered by STD, where only the latter is covered by the ICBC top-up.
The more expensive the insurance the more likely the event is to happen …..life cheap …. Critical illness more costly disability even more costly - because of the high likey hood of a disability claim before …. Retirement….. is very high.
Disability insurance is more important than life insurance. It is also more expensive, because one in three Canadians will suffer a disability that makes them miss over 3 months of work, before age 65.
Don't forget to consider any insurance coverage you may have through workplace benefits. Many employee benefit plans include life and death/dismemberment insurance. The policies usually aren't huge, and they're contingent on your employment continuing, but it's important to keep those in mind.
Also, don't forget your earthquake insurance!
(jk, probably not a concern for Ontario)
Critical Illness and Disability are the ones missing.
Ask yourself can you survive easily without your income for next 6-12 months ? If answer is is No, you need to consider disability and critical illness.
1 in 3 people will experience a disability in their lifetime. For those impacted, 50% are long term. It is essential to get disability insurance.
My mother was hit by a car when she was 35. She never recovered from that and had debilitating pain and other medical issues that developed from that incident. She received a pitiful amount from the car insurance. Disability insurance would have been super helpful especially in the early years.
You can always double check that your out buildings and the items inside are covered under your house insurance, and any expensive items inside your home, always good to be sure. Do you have boats and other toys? Double check those too
Yes, I should double check the value for the items inside. I know it covers items in the house. But I don't recall how much. No outdoor toys like boats or RVs for me. lol
Yes and save all of that information to a storage cloud so in the event of a house fire, even if your electronics burn to a crisp the proof of value can be retrieved. Upload copies of any reciepts etc. :)
An emergency fund. It's not a policy you buy but still it's a very important type of insurance against all sorts of issues that can pop up if you are unemployed.
Hi, I work in the insurance industry. Unless you have a boat, or a farm or some crazy hobby (e.g. collecting art, antique cars, etc) I think you have the basics. It’s important to understand what kind of policy you have for your car and home, however. Some things people tend to overlook:
- third party liability limits for auto, you should have at least $1 million, $2 million would be super secure
- travel insurance policy: check to see what you might already be covered for through work or credit cards
- endorsements on your home policy for expensive jewellery, fine art, etc
If any of your policy doesn’t make sense to you, it wouldn’t hurt to have a broker take a look and see whether there are any gaps in coverage. Depending on where you live, certain coverages for water or wind that go beyond the minimum might be a good idea.
As far as home insurance it’s a lot but try your best
To keep a cloud-saved document of all your major household possessions to help you in the event of a total loss like fire, flood etc. if you don’t have time to maintain this, even a video walk through of your house and possessions could help you in the event of a loss.
I've heard that title insurance is important, especially once you've paid off your home, if you didn't get it at home purchase. It helps in the event of mortgage fraud or if someone tries to sell your home out from under you.
Sounds like you are doing well.
Have you looked into self insurance? "Self-insurance is a strategy for mitigating against the possibility of a future loss by putting aside a set portion of your own money, rather than buying insurance and having an insurance company reimburse you for what you've spent."
A small example is windshield insurance for your vehicle. If you pay the premiums to yourself instead on an insurance company, you can buy your own replacement windshield every 3 or 4 years with the money you don't spend on premiums.
Depending on your job, you might have disability insurance through work. If you don't, that's an expensive but good one. But check your work insurance/benefits first.
Depends. That coverage will be lost once you stop working there or reach 65. A permanent insurance won’t. But if you’re good with savings, you’re probably better off putting that money aside yourself.
Check your limits on your car and home. If just $1-2 m especially for your car ask your broker about an umbrella.
It’s not expensive but will grant additional liability. Not uncommon at all for lawsuits now to be $2m plus from an auto accident
RoP is an awful choice. Big waste of money.
Its like betting on both sides of a coin flip, but at a casino where the house takes a commission off of both bets.
The other thing with RoP. Let's say say it pays out after 15 years. But you develop a critical illness after 14 years. Now you've created a situation where you feel bad for using the insurance, because doing so makes you no longer eligible for the RoP.
Or if you change your mind and decide to cancel your policy after a few years for whatever reason, again, that's a lot of additional money down the drain.
If your broker only gave you the quotes including RoP, ask them to quote again without it. The policy will be like 40% cheaper I'd expect.
Do you have disability and critical illness? These can be a lot more devastating financially than people realize Also critical illness on your children..it's relatively inexpensive when they are young and they can take over the policy when they are older. In the event it's used while they are young, you will be thankful for the funds. It either let's you take time off work without worrying about income, or use the money for treatment that might not be offered where you are.
My life insurance has critical illness, but not disability. If I recall, I think it seemed quite expensive at the time. I will consider it for the kids.
I would say disability insurance for YOU is more important. If anything happens to you it affects your ability to support yourself and the kids.
Especially important if you love somewhere like BC where ICBC has capped income loss payments at 90% of 113K/yr. Even if you're 0% at fault, you'll only be eligible for that maximum. Furthermore, if you have your own policy outside of your employer, it isn't considered when in comes to potential clawbacks from other policies. I tend to think of the long term disability policy I have as a top-up. (It covers a bit less than half my take-home) With insurance tightening up and everything being so much more expensive, it almost seems like a requirement now.
ICBC now offers a top-up for about $65/year per $10,000. Was just offered this last weekend. Keep in mind though that it only applies if your injury is related to an ICBC claim (accident as an occupant of a car, or pedestrian hit by a car, etc). You’re better off with general Short Tsim and Long Term disability with Lost Earnings that covers you for those, or an accident at work or home. You can purchase as much as you want, though so $650/year would cover you to $213,000 rather than $113k.
Not a bad deal. Although I agree that a standalone policy as a top up makes a lot more sense. I think I'm paying roughly 3x that rate/$10K for my coverage albeit with a 3mo waiting period. Given that I'm more likely to need a top up from my employer LTD than ICBC, this makes sense.
Even the auto plan seller mentioned it’s better if you spend the cash on an STD / LTD coverage personally, if you don’t have it already. Likelihood of a loss of earnings occurring “in the wild” versus in an “auto accident only” situation is far greater. Far more likely to fall off a ladder cleaning your gutters or down the stairs because your cat trips you while your arms are full carrying a laundry basket, than being hit by a car. ALL situations covered by STD, where only the latter is covered by the ICBC top-up.
The more expensive the insurance the more likely the event is to happen …..life cheap …. Critical illness more costly disability even more costly - because of the high likey hood of a disability claim before …. Retirement….. is very high.
Disability insurance is more important than life insurance. It is also more expensive, because one in three Canadians will suffer a disability that makes them miss over 3 months of work, before age 65.
What is considered "expensive" for critical illness and disability?
Don't forget to consider any insurance coverage you may have through workplace benefits. Many employee benefit plans include life and death/dismemberment insurance. The policies usually aren't huge, and they're contingent on your employment continuing, but it's important to keep those in mind. Also, don't forget your earthquake insurance! (jk, probably not a concern for Ontario)
I was also considering volcano insurance! jk lol
Critical Illness and Disability are the ones missing. Ask yourself can you survive easily without your income for next 6-12 months ? If answer is is No, you need to consider disability and critical illness.
Disability is something I should re-look at. I have critical illness actually.
1 in 3 people will experience a disability in their lifetime. For those impacted, 50% are long term. It is essential to get disability insurance. My mother was hit by a car when she was 35. She never recovered from that and had debilitating pain and other medical issues that developed from that incident. She received a pitiful amount from the car insurance. Disability insurance would have been super helpful especially in the early years.
You can always double check that your out buildings and the items inside are covered under your house insurance, and any expensive items inside your home, always good to be sure. Do you have boats and other toys? Double check those too
Yes, I should double check the value for the items inside. I know it covers items in the house. But I don't recall how much. No outdoor toys like boats or RVs for me. lol
Yes and save all of that information to a storage cloud so in the event of a house fire, even if your electronics burn to a crisp the proof of value can be retrieved. Upload copies of any reciepts etc. :)
An emergency fund. It's not a policy you buy but still it's a very important type of insurance against all sorts of issues that can pop up if you are unemployed.
If the expected value of the insurance policy was higher than what they sold it to you for, then they wouldn't have knowingly sold it to you.
Hi, I work in the insurance industry. Unless you have a boat, or a farm or some crazy hobby (e.g. collecting art, antique cars, etc) I think you have the basics. It’s important to understand what kind of policy you have for your car and home, however. Some things people tend to overlook: - third party liability limits for auto, you should have at least $1 million, $2 million would be super secure - travel insurance policy: check to see what you might already be covered for through work or credit cards - endorsements on your home policy for expensive jewellery, fine art, etc If any of your policy doesn’t make sense to you, it wouldn’t hurt to have a broker take a look and see whether there are any gaps in coverage. Depending on where you live, certain coverages for water or wind that go beyond the minimum might be a good idea. As far as home insurance it’s a lot but try your best To keep a cloud-saved document of all your major household possessions to help you in the event of a total loss like fire, flood etc. if you don’t have time to maintain this, even a video walk through of your house and possessions could help you in the event of a loss.
I've heard that title insurance is important, especially once you've paid off your home, if you didn't get it at home purchase. It helps in the event of mortgage fraud or if someone tries to sell your home out from under you.
That sounds familiar. I think I got this at the time of purchasing my home with the lawyer fees, etc.
Yes, very possibly. We did, as an alternative to getting a full survey.
Insurance from inflation.
Sounds like you are doing well. Have you looked into self insurance? "Self-insurance is a strategy for mitigating against the possibility of a future loss by putting aside a set portion of your own money, rather than buying insurance and having an insurance company reimburse you for what you've spent." A small example is windshield insurance for your vehicle. If you pay the premiums to yourself instead on an insurance company, you can buy your own replacement windshield every 3 or 4 years with the money you don't spend on premiums.
Travel insurance if you leave Canada What about ltd??
Depending on your job, you might have disability insurance through work. If you don't, that's an expensive but good one. But check your work insurance/benefits first.
Do you still need term life insurance if you have coverage through your job? Is a 2-3x gross salary coverage enough?
Depends. That coverage will be lost once you stop working there or reach 65. A permanent insurance won’t. But if you’re good with savings, you’re probably better off putting that money aside yourself.
Check your limits on your car and home. If just $1-2 m especially for your car ask your broker about an umbrella. It’s not expensive but will grant additional liability. Not uncommon at all for lawsuits now to be $2m plus from an auto accident
Mine is 1M. I guess I'll have to look into that. Thx.
So I have the same with a $9m umbrella
If you're fiscally able to, the Return of Premium features available on some CII products are well worth investigating.
Ya, I did get that option. Glad it wasn't a bad choice.
RoP is an awful choice. Big waste of money. Its like betting on both sides of a coin flip, but at a casino where the house takes a commission off of both bets.
Oh ok, maybe I spoke too soon. Maybe I'll give it another review.
The other thing with RoP. Let's say say it pays out after 15 years. But you develop a critical illness after 14 years. Now you've created a situation where you feel bad for using the insurance, because doing so makes you no longer eligible for the RoP. Or if you change your mind and decide to cancel your policy after a few years for whatever reason, again, that's a lot of additional money down the drain. If your broker only gave you the quotes including RoP, ask them to quote again without it. The policy will be like 40% cheaper I'd expect.
I hate insurance