Transparency and Compensation
This page explains how CWCC and its advisors are compensated, the products we do and do not earn on, and how we keep that from steering your advice. We publish this information because you deserve to know how the person advising you is paid before you decide whether to act on their advice.
Last reviewed: May 2026.
1. Why We Publish This
Most Canadians never learn how their insurance advisor is compensated. The information is rarely volunteered, and few clients know to ask. We take a different position. We believe that an advisory relationship built on trust requires that the client understand, from the outset, how the advisor earns a living and where the advisor's financial interests align with the client's and where they may diverge.
This is not a legal formality buried in fine print. It is a deliberate choice to put the compensation question on the table before any recommendation is made. A client who understands how we are paid is a client who can weigh our advice with appropriate context, ask informed questions, and make decisions with full knowledge of the commercial relationship involved. That is the only kind of advisory relationship worth having.
2. How CWCC Is Compensated
Important Disclosure: Jose Salloum, Michael Salloum, and CWCC are compensated primarily through commissions paid by insurance companies on the insurance products that clients purchase. These commissions are paid by the insurer, not invoiced directly to the client. The commission structure typically consists of a first-year commission, calculated as a percentage of the first-year premium, and smaller ongoing service or renewal commissions paid in subsequent years for as long as the policy remains in force. The amount and structure of commissions vary by insurer, by product type, and by policy size. Because CWCC earns a commission when a client purchases an insurance product, CWCC has a financial interest in recommending the purchase of insurance products.
In plain language: when you purchase a participating whole life policy, a term life policy, a critical illness policy, a disability policy, or a group insurance plan through CWCC, the insurance company pays CWCC a commission. You do not receive a separate bill for this. The commission is built into the economics of the insurance product, in the same way it is for every licensed insurance advisor in Canada. The larger the policy and the premium, the larger the commission. This is the standard compensation model for insurance distribution in Canada, and it is the model under which CWCC operates.
We disclose this plainly because it is the single most important thing for you to understand about our commercial relationship: we earn more when you buy more insurance. That fact does not, by itself, make our advice unreliable, but it is a fact you are entitled to weigh, and we would rather you weigh it with our help than discover it later.
3. The Specific Conflict. What We Earn On, and What We Do Not
Important Disclosure: CWCC earns commissions on insurance products, including participating whole life insurance, term life insurance, universal life insurance, critical illness insurance, disability insurance, and group insurance. CWCC also earns compensation on segregated funds, which are insurance products regulated under provincial insurance legislation. CWCC does NOT earn any commission, trailing fee, or other compensation on securities-based investment products, including exchange-traded funds (ETFs), individual stocks, individual bonds, or mutual funds held outside an insurance contract, because CWCC is not registered with the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and does not distribute these products. Where a client's plan involves securities-based products, CWCC coordinates with a separately registered CIRO firm, and CWCC does not receive securities commissions from that arrangement.
This distinction matters, and it is worth stating clearly because it shapes what we are able to recommend. When we discuss the choice between an insurance-based solution and a securities-based solution, for example, between a segregated fund and an ETF, or between participating whole life insurance and a portfolio of investments, we earn a commission on one side of that comparison and nothing on the other. We earn on the segregated fund. We earn nothing on the ETF. We earn on the participating whole life policy. We earn nothing on the index portfolio.
We tell you this directly because it is exactly the kind of conflict that, left undisclosed, would undermine the trust this relationship depends on. When CWCC recommends an insurance-based solution over a securities-based alternative, you should know that CWCC has a financial interest in that recommendation. This does not mean the recommendation is wrong. Insurance-based solutions are genuinely the right answer for many situations, and segregated funds carry guarantees that ETFs do not. But you are entitled to know where our compensation sits in any comparison we present, and to seek an independent second opinion on the securities side from a CIRO-registered professional who earns nothing from the insurance side.
4. How We Manage This Conflict
Disclosure alone is not enough. Telling you how we are paid is the first step; making sure it does not steer your advice is the second. CWCC does that in the following ways.
Needs-based recommendations. Every recommendation begins with an assessment of the client's actual needs, circumstances, and objectives, not with a product. We do not start from "which product pays the most" and work backward. We start from the client's situation and identify what genuinely fits, including, where appropriate, the conclusion that the client does not need the product we would earn a commission on.
Full comparison disclosure. When we present a comparison between an insurance-based and a securities-based solution, we disclose, at the point of comparison, that we earn on the insurance side and not on the securities side. The conflict is named where the decision is made, not buried on a separate page.
No obligation, ever. No client is ever under any obligation to purchase any product or service from CWCC. The Discovery Meeting carries no obligation. The assessment carries no obligation. You are free to take our analysis and implement it elsewhere, to seek other opinions, or to decline entirely.
Encouragement of independent advice. We actively encourage clients to seek independent professional advice, from an accountant on the tax implications, from a lawyer on the legal structures, and, on the securities side of any comparison, from a CIRO-registered professional who has no insurance commission at stake. We would rather you make a fully informed decision than a fast one.
The long-term relationship as a discipline. CWCC's business is built on multi-decade client relationships, not one-time transactions. An advisor who places an unsuitable policy to earn a commission damages a relationship that was meant to last twenty years. Our economic interest in keeping clients for decades is itself a check on the short-term incentive to over-sell. A relationship that ends in a lapsed policy and a lost client is worth far less than one that endures.
5. Insurer Relationships
Important Disclosure: CWCC distributes insurance products from multiple insurance companies and is not owned by, or exclusively contracted to, any single insurer. Where CWCC operates through a Managing General Agency (MGA), the MGA may receive compensation from insurers in connection with business placed through it. CWCC's recommendation of a particular insurer's product is based on the suitability of that product for the client's needs, not on any difference in compensation between insurers. If CWCC ever has a material relationship with an insurer beyond the standard distribution arrangement, such as an ownership interest or a volume-based incentive that could influence product recommendations, that relationship will be disclosed to the client.
The ability to recommend products from multiple insurers, rather than being tied to a single company's product line, is a meaningful protection for the client. It means the recommendation can be driven by what fits the client's situation rather than by what one insurer happens to offer. Where compensation differs between insurers for similar products, that difference does not drive the recommendation.
7. Your Rights
As a current or prospective client of CWCC, you have the right to ask, at any time, how CWCC is compensated in connection with any specific product or recommendation. You have the right to a clear answer. You have the right to seek independent professional advice before making any decision. You have the right to decline any recommendation without consequence to your relationship with CWCC. And you have the right to request, in writing, the specific commission CWCC would earn on a product before you decide whether to purchase it.
If you ever feel that a recommendation was driven by CWCC's compensation rather than by your needs, we want to know. You may raise the concern directly with us through the Contact page, or, if you prefer, with the applicable regulator: the Autorité des marchés financiers in Quebec, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario, or the Insurance Council of British Columbia.
What to ask for in writing before you sign
Part seven gives you the right to ask what this firm earns, in writing, before you decide. Ask for the rest in the same breath.
- The illustration, with guaranteed values shown apart from those that are not.
- What the firm earns here, and how that concentrates in the first contract year.
- What this contract is meant to solve, and for whom.
- What else was considered, and why it was set aside.
- The issuing insurer and the exact contract, not a category.
- The application as it will be submitted, with every answer recorded on your behalf.
- What you are left holding if the funding stops early.
None of it is confidential to the firm. It is your file and your signature. If any of it is refused, or arrives only as a spoken answer nobody will put on paper, treat the refusal as the answer: you would be signing on trust rather than on evidence.
Check the register yourself, where you live
Everything on this page is the firm speaking about itself. One part can be checked without us. Insurance is licensed province by province, and each regulator keeps a public register anyone may search: the Autorité des marchés financiers in Quebec, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario, the Insurance Council of British Columbia.
Ask for the firm’s exact legal name and the exact spelling of the name of the person recommending the contract, then look both up yourself. Confirm the licence is current, that it reaches the province where you live rather than the one where that person works, and that it covers the class of insurance in front of you. A number recited by the person you are checking is not verification.
The conflict that is not about money
The conflict named above is financial, and disclosure settles it. There is a second one that no compensation statement will ever show. This practice is known for one approach, we believe in it, and a practice known for one approach has a pull toward it. That pull works on people who are entirely honest, and telling you how we are paid does nothing to correct it.
The approach is not right for everybody. One question protects you: what was the alternative, and why was it set aside? A useful answer names something specific and says what made it a poorer fit. Two answers should stop you: that nothing else was weighed, and that the alternative is always wrong.
What happens to your file and your information
An application collects more about you than most documents ever will: health history, income, borrowing, family circumstances, medical test results. The insurer needs it to decide whether to issue a contract and on what terms. We need it to advise you properly and to keep the file current. It goes to the insurer and to the managing general agency that places the business. It is not sold.
You may ask what is held about you, ask for a correction, and withdraw consent to be contacted. Put a privacy request in writing to the Privacy Officer, Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc., 203-3899 Autoroute des Laurentides, Laval, Quebec H7L 3H7. Withdrawing consent ends the contact; it does not erase a file, because records attached to a contract in force are also held by the insurer.
How to complain, in order, and what to keep
Complaints run in an order, and skipping a step sends you back to it. Start with the firm, in writing: what was recommended, what you were told, what happened, and what you want done. Ask at the same time for the complaint handling process and how long a reply should take. If that reply does not satisfy you, take it to the regulator for the province where you live, named in part seven above.
- The date of each meeting, who was present, and what was said, written down the same day.
- Every document you were handed, in the version you were handed.
- What you signed, and anything you were asked to sign and did not.
Questions people ask
What if I am told the commission figure is confidential?
Then you have your answer. This page gives you the right to ask in writing before you decide. A firm unwilling to put its compensation on paper is asking you to sign on trust.
Is checking the public register an insult to the person advising me?
No, and anyone who treats it as one has told you something useful. It takes a few minutes, and a licensed person expects to be looked up.
Who we work with, and when we say no
A firm’s compensation is only half of what shapes its advice. The other half is who it agrees to take on. We publish both.
Four of our criteria are not ours at all. A policy cannot exist without them, and no advisor can waive them:
- Canadian residency. These are Canadian contracts with Canadian tax treatment, and an advisor must hold a licence in the province where the client lives.
- Income or assets. The strategy redirects capital that already moves through a household or a business. It does not create capital, and presenting it as though it might would be a misrepresentation.
- Capacity to fund the policy on a schedule. A policy that lapses because it could not be funded leaves the client worse off than never starting. Where the cash flow is not there, we say so instead of writing the application.
- The insurer’s underwriting decision. Health, lifestyle, occupation and age are assessed by the insurance company, which accepts, rates, limits, postpones or declines. Policies are generally issued from infancy to about age 78. We do not decide this and we do not predict it.
One criterion is entirely ours, and we would rather name it than imply someone else imposed it. We work with people who are willing to be coached. This strategy runs against most of what people are taught about money, it unfolds over decades, and it depends on the client understanding what they own. Where someone is not open to that, the policy may still be issued and the strategy will still underperform, so we decline the engagement rather than take a file we cannot serve well.
Declining is not a judgement of anyone. It is an admission of the limits of what we can do usefully, and it costs the person nothing but the thirty minutes already spent.
The reader-facing version of these criteria, written in plainer language, is on the Infinite Financial Sovereignty page.