Life insurance in Peterborough

CWCC works with families, retirees, people who have received a rating or a decline, and business owners in Peterborough 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 Peterborough different

Peterborough combines a population older than the Ontario average, an economy that transformed after the decline of its manufacturing sector, and a role as the service centre for the whole Kawarthas region.

A manufacturing legacy. Generations of industrial workers, with private pension plans and working lives marked by closures.

A population ageing in place. Many people finished their careers here and stayed, and a substantial share of them have a medical history.

A health and education hub. A regional hospital, a university and a college, with the group plans that come with them.

A seasonal economy around the lakes. Tourism, cottages, construction. Uneven incomes and a great many self-employed people.

You were told no, or you were told more expensive

This is the most useful conversation we have here, and it is also the one people do not dare to start, because they believe the door is closed everywhere.

Three outcomes, not one

An application can receive three unfavourable answers, and they have nothing to do with one another.

• A rating. This is by far the most common outcome, and it is worth being clear about what it is: a rating is a price, not a refusal. The protection is exactly the same; it costs more. Many people give up at the word when what they were being offered was a policy.
• A postponement. The insurer is not saying no: it is saying not now. It is common where a test result is pending, a treatment is under way, or a recent surgery has to be followed by a waiting period. Note the date you can come back, and come back.
• A decline. This is the rarest outcome, and it belongs to one insurer.

A decline at one insurer is not a decline everywhere

Every insurer applies its own underwriting rules, and they genuinely differ from one company to another. A condition treated severely by one can be accepted elsewhere on ordinary terms, or with a moderate rating.

We promise no result, and nobody should promise you one. What we say is more measured: a single unfavourable answer does not describe the market.

Ask for the reason

You have a right to know why. The reason is sometimes a simple error: an anomalous laboratory result, a file confused with another, information mistranscribed on the application.

An incorrect file can be corrected, and it is worth doing before any new application. It is one of the few situations where a few telephone calls change the outcome entirely.

Simplified issue and guaranteed issue

There are contracts that ask few health questions, or none. They are useful in certain situations, and they carry a feature that has to be known before signing rather than after.

Most of these contracts provide a graded benefit during the first years: on death from illness in that period, the insurer generally does not pay the full amount, but rather a return of premiums with interest, or a fraction of the coverage. Accidental death is usually treated differently.

The length of that period and the exact formula are in the contract and vary by insurer. An advisor who presents guaranteed issue without mentioning the graded benefit is hiding the essential feature of the product.

These contracts also cost appreciably more per dollar of coverage. They are last-resort tools, and they deserve to be considered after the ordinary route has been tried, not instead of it.

The rule never to break

If you already hold a policy, whatever it is: never cancel it until a new policy has been issued, paid and put in force.

An application accepted verbally is not a policy in force. An application approved subject to conditions is not one either. Every year people end up with no coverage at all because they cancelled the old one a few weeks too early, and that mistake cannot be undone if their health has changed in the meantime.

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 anyone who has held a policy a long time, one check is overdue: the beneficiary designation dates from when the policy was taken out and overrides the will, whatever the date of that will.

What we do for people here

When someone arrives with bad news, we start by reading the letter. The distinction between a rating, a postponement and a decline is in there, and it changes everything that follows.

We then check the reason and, where it rests on inaccurate information, we tell you how to have it corrected before any new application.

We will tell you frankly if the ordinary route is closed, and we will present guaranteed issue only after explaining its graded benefit and its cost.

The first meeting

Half an hour, by video, at no cost and with nothing to sign. If you have received a letter from an insurer, keep it open: we will read it together. At the end you will know exactly what you received and what remains possible, including if the honest answer is that nothing is, for now.

Frequently asked questions