Life insurance in Langley

CWCC works with young Langley and Fraser Valley families, self-employed tradespeople and business owners 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 British Columbia, where Jose Salloum is a licensed life insurance agent with the Insurance Council of British Columbia.

What makes Langley different

Langley is among the Fraser Valley areas where the population has grown most in recent years, and that growth has a very particular composition: it is young, mortgaged and busy.

Young homeowning families. Households who came from Vancouver or Surrey for what houses cost, with a mortgage calculated on two incomes and small children.

A great many self-employed tradespeople. Construction, transport, specialised services. Real incomes, no group plan, and an income that depends entirely on being physically able to work.

Agriculture still present. Land farmed at the edge of an advancing urban fabric, with the succession question that comes with it.

Families spread across three generations. Grandparents often live nearby, sometimes under the same roof, and take part in supporting the grandchildren.

Insuring a child: the real reason, and the bad ones

This is the question we are asked most often here, and it is also one of the worst explained subjects in the whole industry. Let us start with what not to do.

The bad reasons

It is not income replacement. A child does not produce income the family depends on, and nobody should present a policy on a child as protection against a financial loss. The loss, in that case, is not a financial one.

It is not a savings account in disguise. If your objective is to fund education, there is a registered plan designed for it, carrying federal grants that no policy reproduces. We will tell you to start there.

It is not urgent. Nobody should be pressing you on this subject. If the conversation puts pressure on you, that is the signal to get up from the table.

The reason that holds

One remains, and it is a solid one: fixing insurability while it is perfect.

A healthy five-year-old is insurable without reservation. The same person at thirty may have received a diagnosis, developed a chronic condition, or chosen a trade that insurers rate more heavily. A policy issued in childhood stays in force regardless of what follows, as long as the premiums are paid.

To that is added a guarantee few people know about: some policies carry an option allowing coverage to be increased at dates or events set out in the contract, without new evidence of insurability. The child, grown up, can then obtain substantial coverage at the moment they buy a house or start a family, even where their health would no longer otherwise allow it.

That is what the parent is buying: not a sum of money, but a right. The amounts are generally modest, the premiums too, and most of the value will reveal itself in twenty-five years.

The order of priorities

One last thing, and we say it even when it costs us the sale: parents insure themselves before their children. A child whose parents are underinsured does not need a policy: they need insured parents. If the budget allows only one thing, this is not it.

When income depends on the body

Many families here live on self-employed income in a physical trade. Two points deserve to be checked rather than assumed.

The first is that there is no group plan behind you: no wage insurance, no employer disability benefit, nothing that triggers automatically. The second is that the disability definition in an individual policy decides everything: a definition tied to your own occupation does not protect you the way one requiring that you cannot perform any occupation does.

What British Columbia adds

The province charges probate fees calculated on the value of assets passing through the estate, and the process takes time before the family receives anything. A death benefit paid to a named beneficiary does not pass through it.

For young parents one practical point matters more than any other: naming a minor as beneficiary. A minor child generally cannot receive a death benefit directly, and the absence of a structure for it can bring in a third party and cause delay. Have a lawyer check this point when the will is drafted, not afterwards.

What we do for families here

With young parents we always start in the same order: protection for the adults first, the income second, the children last. That order is not negotiable and it has nothing to do with our interests.

We then look at what already exists: the mortgage insurance taken out with the lender, which is almost always worth comparing, coverage from an employer if there is one, and the will if it exists.

We coordinate with your lawyer and your accountant. Will drafting and tax belong to them.

The first meeting

Half an hour, by video, at no cost and with nothing to sign. Both parents can attend from two different places, which solves the usual scheduling problem. At the end you will know whether this belongs in your situation, and if the answer is no, you will hear it during the meeting.

Frequently asked questions