Insurance

Premium Advice — Insurance and your summer home

Now that school’s out and summer is here, many of your clients are likely planning to spend time at the cottage. Most aren’t thinking about how to use insurance to protect their idyllic home away from home — and if they are, it’s usually related to protecting the asset in case of a casualty, fire […]

By Chris Paterson |July 4, 2008

4 min read

Life

Premium Advice — Using insurance to ensure a happy second marriage

A lot of our clients are successful in business, but marriage is another story. Many first-time unions have ended in divorce because of an overworked husband or wife, but now that they have a solid career, it’s often time to find a special someone again. Life isn’t as simple for your client as it was […]

By Chris Paterson |June 3, 2008

4 min read

Living Benefits

Training needed to increase CI sales

Less than a month after the release of presumably clearer, more concise critical illness definitions, the industry is providing feedback — and it’s not all positive. Since its launch about a decade ago, critical illness (CI) insurance promised Canadians a lump sum if they were stricken with a life-threatening medical problem, such as cancer or […]

By Romana King |May 21, 2008

4 min read

Living Benefits

Why isn’t CI selling?

For 10 years, critical illness (CI) insurance has promised Canadians money if they’re stricken with a life-threatening medical problem such as cancer. At first, sales were brisk, but in the last five years the CI space has basically come to a standstill. Starting in 2005, sales have continually dropped, with the industry seeing a -5% […]

By Bryan Borzykowski |May 9, 2008

5 min read

Premium Advice — Opening up the CI space

At the recent World Critical Illness Conference and the Conference for Advanced Life Underwriting, Munich Reinsurance made a long-awaited announcement that benchmark definitions have arrived in Canada. Why did they do this, and why is it important to advisors? Although it’s a voluntary measure that each manufacturer must adopt, it addresses what many advisors have […]

5 min read

Premium Advice — There’s still life after a decline

Very few roadblocks can be as frustrating in our business as a decline. After spending hours of your time developing a relationship, preparing recommendations, and explaining the benefits of purchasing coverage to a client, some unforeseen problem limits the underwriter’s ability to make an offer, and they are not able to provide coverage. How do […]

4 min read

Premium Advice — There’s still life after a decline

(April 2008) Very few roadblocks can be as frustrating in our business as a decline. After spending hours of your time developing a relationship, preparing recommendations, and explaining the benefits of purchasing coverage to a client, some unforeseen problem limits the underwriter’s ability to make an offer, and they aren’t able to provide coverage. How […]

By Staff |April 1, 2008

4 min read

Premium Advice — Help your client avoid an insurance denial

Age 90 7.015% Same couple, but with a 200% rating (fairly high for a joint policy) Age 80 10.136% Age 85 4.976% Age 90 2.341% So even if the second spouse lived to age 85, he or she still would have needed 7% to 9% pre-tax to have generated the same return on the couple’s […]

3 min read

Premium Advice — Protect registered assets by cross-recommending insurance solutions

Age 90 net estate value $146,738 (after $106,172 of taxes paid) Age 80 net estate value $212,496 (after $166,024 of taxes paid) 6% growth rate $400,000 RRIF paid out at legislated minimum 40% marginal tax rate Age 65, non-smokers There are two sides to every story, and that includes RRSPs. On one hand, they help […]

4 min read

Premium Advice — Turning compound tax into compound coverage

One of the most common client concerns is how to find money to fund advisors’ insurance recommendations. In previous columns, I examined two strategies to help clients in the medium- to high-net-worth market overcome this anxiety. In this column, I’ll explore how we can use guaranteed or fixed interest income to create tax strategies to […]

4 min read