Life insurance in Victoria

CWCC works with Victoria retirees, provincial public servants, military members 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 Victoria different

Victoria has one of the oldest populations of any Canadian city, and a great deal of that population came from somewhere else. It is the second characteristic that changes the planning, and it almost always goes unnoticed.

A city people move to for retirement. Many households spent their working lives in Ontario, Alberta or elsewhere, then moved here. Their will, their designations and sometimes their property stayed in the province they left.

The provincial capital. The British Columbia public service is heavily present, with the pension plans that go with it.

A significant military presence. The base at Esquimalt employs members of the Canadian Armed Forces, whose coverage and retirement situation follows its own rules.

An island. That sounds incidental and is not: adult children often live on the mainland, and administering an estate at a distance means a ferry or a flight.

You moved. Your will stayed behind.

This is the most important question on this page, and the most frequently overlooked.

A valid will that no longer does the same thing

A will drafted in Ontario or Alberta generally remains valid after a move to British Columbia. The problem is not its validity: it is the legal regime that now applies to it.

British Columbia’s Wills, Estates and Succession Act allows a spouse or a child to ask the court to vary a will that does not make adequate provision for them. That remedy does not exist in the same way in most other provinces.

In other words: a will drafted elsewhere, deliberately dividing unequally among the children, often for good reasons, finds itself, after the move, exposed to a remedy it was never designed for.

We do not give legal advice. This is a question for a British Columbia lawyer or notary. We raise it because almost nobody has their will reviewed after an interprovincial move, and because the fix costs little compared with the litigation it prevents.

Property left in the other province

Many households keep a property where they used to live: a cottage, a rented condominium, the family home not yet sold.

Probate is administered province by province. An estate including a property in Ontario and a residence in British Columbia may therefore require a grant in each of the two provinces, with the fees, the delays and often the professionals of each. It takes longer and costs more than the family expects.

Policy proceeds paid to a named beneficiary do not follow that path: they generally do not form part of the estate assets and wait on no probate, in any province.

Designations signed elsewhere

A beneficiary designation remains in force exactly as signed, even signed in another province twenty years ago, before a remarriage or the birth of grandchildren. A ten-minute check, and one of the most avoidable causes of litigation.

Military service and the period around release

For a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, three items deserve checking before release, not after.

Service-linked coverage. Insurance offered to military members has its own rules about what continues after release, at what cost and for how long. Those terms are in your contract and with the plan administrator: they are read while you are still serving, when your insurability is at its best.

The survivor pension. As in most defined benefit plans, it generally represents a fraction of the pension paid to the member. The household loses a full pension and receives a fraction.

Successive postings. A military career often leaves traces in several provinces: a property bought during a posting, a will drafted in another province, designations signed at a previous base. It is exactly the situation described above, multiplied.

We do not advise on which pension option to elect: that belongs to the member and the plan administrator. We can quantify what the coverage closing the gap costs.

Long-term care

In the country’s oldest population, this is the most pressing question and the least prepared for.

The British Columbia public system covers part of accommodation and care, with a user contribution set by defined rules. What it does not fully cover is prolonged support at home, private help, or free choice of a residence.

Two distinct needs follow: the cost of care for the person, and protection of the wealth intended for a spouse and children. Long-term care or critical illness insurance answers the first; a life insurance policy answers the second. They are not the same products.

An honest qualification, and it matters particularly here: after a certain age, and depending on health, this coverage becomes costly or unavailable. The useful window is generally one’s fifties. If you are reading this at seventy-five, we will look at what remains possible without promising you what no longer is.

Our seven service areas, seen from Victoria

Life insurance

Term, permanent, participating whole life. Here the dominant function is estate liquidity, especially when property sits in more than one province.

Living benefits

Critical illness, disability, long-term care. This is the most relevant area in this city, and the one where age closes doors.

Group insurance

For a small-business employer, a retention tool. For the member, coverage that ends with the job or with service.

Wealth creation

RRSP, TFSA, FHSA, RESP. Approaching or beginning retirement, the question shifts from accumulation to the drawdown sequence.

Investment options

Segregated funds, mutual funds, ETFs, GICs. Education, and segregated fund contracts placed under our insurance licence. For securities held through a dealer: a CIRO-registered representative, which CWCC is not.

Succession planning

A will reviewed after the move, executor, designations, probate fees, property situated in another province.

Financial sovereignty

The layer that connects the other six. See below.

The Infinite Financial Sovereignty® strategy in Victoria

The strategy we call Infinite Financial Sovereignty® rests on the approach widely known as The Infinite Banking Concept®, originated by R. Nelson Nash. It uses a participating whole life insurance policy issued by a Canadian mutual insurer as the place capital accumulates on a tax-deferred basis, accessed through a policy loan rather than by applying to an outside lender.

Three clarifications, non-negotiable: a policy loan is a genuine loan issued by the insurer, it accrues interest, and it reduces the death benefit while outstanding. Dividends are never guaranteed. And this is not a bank: a policy is an insurance contract governed by provincial insurance legislation, it is not a deposit account, and protection comes from Assuris rather than CDIC.

And the qualification that matters most in this city. This strategy is judged in decades. For someone already retired it is generally inappropriate: the horizon is missing and insurability has already begun to decline. The real need is then estate liquidity and care protection, not a long-term capital structure.

Here it suits a minority: business owners, incorporated professionals, households in their forties or fifties with stable cash flow. Chapter 8 of the book exists to help a reader conclude that it is not for them, and in Victoria that is often the right conclusion.

The book Infinite Financial Sovereignty®, Simplified sets out the full mechanics.

How this approach compares

An honest comparison does not declare a winner.

The first row of this table rules our own strategy out for a good share of this page’s readers. That is deliberate. A participating policy is an insurance contract; comparing it to the market as though it were a fund would be a category error.

Who this is for in Victoria

• People who came from another province. A will to review, designations signed elsewhere, property left behind.
• Serving and former military members. Coverage that changes at release, a partial survivor pension, traces in several provinces.
• People in their fifties. That is the useful window for long-term care.
• Families wishing to divide unequally. A will can be varied in British Columbia.
• Small businesses and incorporated professionals. Passive income, succession, the shareholders’ agreement.

And who it is not for: a permanent capital strategy generally does not suit someone already retired. Protection and estate liquidity, yes. The capital structure, no.

What a first meeting covers

Thirty minutes, online, no products and no obligation.

How a meeting works

All of our meetings are held online, by video. Nobody has to take a ferry or a flight: not you, and not your adult children on the mainland, who can join the same meeting. The time difference is accounted for.

Check us out independently

No form in this section, nothing to book. Before trusting anyone with money the right instinct is to verify, and nothing here should discourage it.

Frequently asked questions. Victoria