How Your Foresters Life Insurance Policy Could Get Your Child a Scholarship

Foresters Life Insurance Company of Canada could contribute to your child's post-secondary education.

The company offers its members the opportunity to apply for a scholarship toward their child’s or grandchild’s studies or their own university or college studies. Not all policyholders are members, though, and becoming a member depends on which policy you buy.

RBC insurance’s New Disability Income Plan

RBC Insurance is the largest disability insurance carrier in Canada. The company has over 118 years of experience underwriting and paying out disability claims, and it has now introduced a new disability insurance plan called The Fundamental Series.

The plan pays extra attention to simplifying the disability insurance process from both underwriting and claim perspectives.

The plan features include the following:

Foresters’ Familylife Participating Whole Life Insurance

Foresters Life Insurance Company has just launched a new participating whole life insurance product called Familylife. The policy is meant to provide families with cost-effective permanent insurance that's specifically tailored to their budget and unique protection needs.

"Familylife comes with a number of key benefits that are not included with other participating whole life policies in Canada," says Natalia Witkowsky, assistant vice-president of Product Management at Foresters Canada.

How to Create a Guaranteed Retirement Fund with Life Annuities

Life Annuities are a contract that's typically sold by life insurance carriers where the client can deposit a lump sum of cash, and depending on the nature of that deposit, the insurance company can offer them a contract, which guarantees them an income over their lifetime.

According to Alex Lekas, director of sales in Ontario for Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc., there are various marked advantages to this arrangement, including income security, peace of mind, help with retirement planning, and tax efficiencies that may be available in the future.

Of course, along with these advantages come with one major shortcoming. "Once you make that cash deposit, you are essentially locked into the contract, so even though you are getting this guaranteed income for life, you no longer have any flexibility with the money." says Lekas.

Commuting Your Pension: Is it Worth It?

When an employee feels like it's time to leave their job, whether they retire early or resign from the company, they may have the opportunity to commute their pension. 

This allows them to have their pension in their hands early when their employer assigns a dollar value to what that pension would be if the employee were to retire right at that moment. But how do you determine what that dollar value should be? We asked Alex Lekas, director of sales for Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc., for the answer.

Why Whole Life Dividends will Continue to Decrease

Whole Life Insurance can be broken down into two categories: participating and non-participating.

Non-participating whole life policies generally offer guaranteed premiums, guaranteed cash value, and guaranteed coverage. Non-participating whole life policies, on the other hand, do not generate a dividend.

Unclaimed Life Insurance Benefits

According to the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, 22 per cent of the people who request a search for lost life insurance policies find one, and in about 25 per cent of those cases, the policies had actually been surrendered for their cash value or simply lapsed. However, the rest revealed unclaimed benefit amounts ranging from $3,500 to $210,000.

The search is free to undertake, but there is a time limit. You only have a window of three months to two years following the death of the potentially insured to conduct the search. In order to avoid hunting for a life insurance policy when your loved one dies, make sure they know what life insurance policies are still active in their lives and that you know too.

When it's time to finally make the life insurance claim, there are a few things you will need to prove that the death of the insured has actually occurred:

Children’s Life Insurance: Which Plan is Best?

Which type of Life Insurance policy is best for your child? This is a tricky but important question. Let's break the answer down into three categories.

1. Permanent Life Insurance

This is the most expensive solution for a child, but it also offers the most comprehensive coverage. Permanent Life Insurance solutions for children include the following.

BMO Insurance Guaranteed Life: Two Big Changes

BMO Insurance is a leading provider of guaranteed issue life insurance solutions.

Their flagship guaranteed issue product is Guaranteed Life Plus. The plan is available via BMO's website as well as its call centre, and the plan is not available through BMO's independent broker network.

BMO recently made two key changes to the policy:

Buying Life Insurance: 10 Quick Tips From Chantal Marr

When buying life insurance in Canada, the following ten tips could save you and your family thousands of dollars and help ensure you get the best plan possible.

1. Pay for your policy annually if you can. Paying annually can save you thousands of dollars over the life of your policy. A 55-year-old non-smoker taking out $1 million in Term 20 coverage will pay $387 a month, or $92,880 a year. The same plan annually costs $4,300 a year, or $86,000 over 20 years — a savings of $6,880.