Life insurance in Richmond Hill

CWCC works with families, professionals and business owners in Richmond Hill and York Region 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 Richmond Hill different

Richmond Hill is among the most diverse municipalities in the country, and that diversity is not recent: many families have been settled here for two generations.

A multilingual population. In a great many households the language of the home is neither English nor French, even where everybody works and studies in one of the two.

Many professionals and entrepreneurs. High incomes, family businesses, and wealth built within a single generation.

Multigenerational households. Elderly parents, adult children and grandchildren under one roof or very close by.

High property values. Which makes estates heavier even for families who do not think of themselves as wealthy.

The application is a legal document about you

This is the central question here, and it has to be put precisely, because it is not about anybody’s competence.

Why a misunderstood question costs as much as an omission

An insurance application is not an administrative form: it is the declaration on which the insurer bases its decision and its price. At the moment of a claim, that is the document it returns to.

From that follows an uneven and rarely stated consequence: an answer given in perfect good faith to a question that was not understood produces, at claim time, the same result as a deliberate omission. The insurer sees only the answer recorded.

The questions that cause trouble are almost never the difficult ones. They are the questions whose vocabulary is technical in a second language: the precise name of a condition, the difference between a test taken and a diagnosis received, the exact period a question is asking about.

The relative who acts as interpreter

When a family member translates the questions, two difficulties appear, and neither has anything to do with their good intentions.

The first is that they do not necessarily know the person’s full medical history, and may answer on their behalf believing they are being helpful. The second is more human still: in front of a parent, people soften things. A habit becomes occasional, an episode becomes long ago, a course of follow-up becomes a routine check.

This is not dishonesty. It is the normal way a family speaks to itself, and it suits badly a document every word of which will be re-read by an insurer.

What solves it

• Ask for the questions in advance, in writing. Nothing requires you to answer on the spot. Take them away and prepare them at home.
• Answer with your medical documents in front of you rather than from memory. Approximate dates are a source of error in themselves.
• Have each question read aloud, slowly. An advisor who finds that tedious is the wrong advisor.
• If a word is not clear, say so. Explaining it is our job before it is yours.

Nobody should press you to sign an application. Taking a week costs nothing; an inaccurate answer can cost the whole of the protection.

The language of the contract, and who will have to read it

Canadian insurers generally issue their contracts in English or French. A verbal explanation, however careful, is not part of the contract, and neither is a translation made by a relative.

The practical question is not only whether you can read the contract today: it is whether the person who will have to make the claim will be able to read it. In a multilingual household that is not always the same person.

It is one more reason to leave behind a note giving the insurer’s name, the contract number and who to contact.

What Ontario adds

Estate Administration Tax is calculated on the value of assets passing through the estate, which weighs more where the family home is worth several times its purchase price. A death benefit paid to a named beneficiary does not pass through it.

In a multigenerational household one check is worth making: where several adults contributed to buying a property without all appearing on title, that should be documented by a lawyer while everybody still agrees.

What we do for families here

We send the application questions in advance where that helps, and then read them back one at a time, aloud, without rushing anybody. That step takes time and it is the most useful part of the whole process.

Where a relative attends to help, we ask that the insured person answer each medical question themselves, however slowly. That is not rigidity: it is what protects the claim.

We coordinate with your accountant and your lawyer where the situation warrants it.

The first meeting

Half an hour, by video, at no cost and with nothing to sign. A family member can attend to help you follow along: just say so at the start. 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