Life insurance in Brantford

CWCC works with manufacturing workers, tradespeople, families and business owners in Brantford and Brant County on life insurance, living benefits, succession planning and capital strategy: entirely online. The firm is registered with Quebec’s AMF under number 602293 and is licensed to place insurance in Ontario, where Jose Salloum is a licensed life insurance agent with FSRA.

A point about titles

In Ontario the titles “Financial Planner” and “Financial Advisor” are protected under the Financial Professionals Title Protection Act. We do not use them. Jose Salloum is a licensed life insurance agent here: that is what his FSRA licence permits.

What makes Brantford different

Brantford is a manufacturing city that has diversified, and whose population has changed quickly over the past decade.

An industrial and logistics base. Manufacturing, warehousing, transport, with a great many jobs where income depends on physical capacity.

Households arrived from the east. Families who came from the greater Toronto area for what houses cost, often with a large mortgage.

Many tradespeople and self-employed workers. Subcontracting, construction, specialised services.

A mid-sized city. Large enough to offer services, small enough that family budgets are tight.

The riders, and the one that matters most

This is the central question here. A life insurance policy is made up of a base contract and, often, riders added on top and charged separately. They are generally presented as a block, quickly, at the end of a meeting.

They are not remotely equal in value, and it is worth saying which one we would defend last.

Waiver of premium

That is the one. The principle is simple: if you become disabled within the meaning the contract gives that word, the insurer pays your premiums in your place and the policy stays in force.

Its value becomes obvious when set beside what we write elsewhere on this site. The leading cause of a policy being lost is premiums stopping. And the leading cause of premiums stopping is income stopping. This rider addresses precisely the scenario where the protection risks disappearing at the very moment the family would most need it.

Three honest qualifications belong here. It carries its own definition of disability, which is not necessarily the one in your group plan. It carries a waiting period before it applies. And it ends at an age set in the contract, often well before the policy does.

Above all, hold on to this: it is not disability insurance. It pays you nothing. It pays the insurer to keep the contract alive, which is useful but is not a replacement for an income.

The others, briefly

• The children’s rider. A small amount covering the children, often convertible later without evidence of insurability. That convertibility is generally what gives it its value, more than the amount itself.
• Guaranteed insurability. The right to increase the protection later without new medical evidence, at set points. Useful for a young person whose income will rise, and of no interest to somebody whose need is already shrinking.
• Accidental death. An additional amount paid only where the death results from an accidental cause defined in the contract. That is the one we question first, for a simple reason: your family does not need more money because the death was accidental rather than natural. The need is the same. If the base amount is insufficient, it is better to increase the base amount.

How to decide

The question to put to each rider fits on one line: what precise scenario does this cover, and is that scenario likely in my life?

A rider covering a rare and narrow scenario costs little and rarely serves. A rider protecting the contract itself against the most frequent cause of its disappearance deserves a more serious conversation. And a budget spent on riders is a budget that does not increase the base amount.

What Ontario adds

Estate Administration Tax is calculated on the value of assets passing through the estate. A death benefit paid to a named beneficiary does not pass through it.

For a household that arrived recently from another region, one check is worth making: the designations recorded on your contracts and registered accounts override the will, and they sometimes date from another period of your life.

What we do for families here

We go through the riders one at a time rather than as a block, and tell you for each which scenario it covers. You then decide, and it is perfectly normal to decline all of them.

We read the waiver of premium’s disability definition with you, along with the age at which it ends, because those two determine what the rider is actually worth.

Finally we check whether the budget would serve you better by increasing the base amount.

The first meeting

Half an hour, by video, at no cost and with nothing to sign. If you already hold a policy, bring it: we will tell you which riders you are paying for, which a great many people do not know. At the end you will know what you have and why.

Frequently asked questions