LifeInsurance.ca: Five Reasons Not to Buy Your Life Insurance Policy Online

LifeInsurance.ca 101: A basic grounding in the realities of buying insurance or any other financial product online!

With the title above, it may seem like we’re shooting ourselves in the foot as a life insurance brokerage that specializes in the online marketing of life and health insurance. We have thousands of people visit our website daily, and many visitors constantly approach us about whether they can buy an insurance policy directly through our website. While we have tinkered with and marinated on this idea, we feel buying life insurance online is a disservice to our customers.

Some Canadian life insurance sites like “lifeinsurance.ca” aren’t even real businesses, but belong to domain speculators. They just send you to whoever is advertising that week.

The following explains our reasoning behind why buying a life insurance policy online just doesn’t make sense:

  1. Life insurance, when bought directly via a website, is looked at on a singular level and not as part of an overall financial plan. When reviewing life insurance, careful planning should be put into determining why the insurance is needed, how much is needed and what is the best type of life insurance for a specific need. It is very difficult to do this, without speaking to a broker over the phone or in person.

  2. Life insurance bought directly from a website is limited in its product offering. Most companies selling life insurance online limit their portfolio to a few carriers and in some instances, just one carrier with only a few of their products.

  3. Certain policy features may not be fully explained when a policy is bought online. Life insurance has many nuances and features that may not be fully disclosed online, e.g. some ten-year term policies are not renewable or convertible, or may carry a higher than normal renewable premium.

  4. Many insurance policies are just too complicated to be sold online. Universal Life and Whole Life insurance policies have far too many features to be sold directly online. BMO’s Universal Life policy has over 400 investment options. The plan is too detailed to be sold online.

  5. Any further contact would likely be with a call centre and not a broker, which is another downside.   

Do not get us wrong, we are not suggesting that the internet is not a valuable resource when purchasing life insurance. The internet is a fantastic education forum when purchasing life insurance. Our Instant Quote Calculator, Needs Analysis Calculator and our new Life Insurance Internal Rate of Return Calculator are all fantastic tools. We also have a myriad of blog articles on different life insurance topics.

But check the reputation and content of a business before you begin a relationship. You don’t want to end up on a lifeinsurance.ca.

You can contact us anytime at 1-866-899-4849, if you have any life or health insurance questions, or if you’d like to be connected with a local broker in your area.

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  • Roy
    June 7, 2013 at 7:28 pm

    As the people who have bought car insurance on-line and had claim problems how well things are working out

  • Albert
    June 6, 2013 at 8:09 am

    The HSBC rates for example are through the rates when compared to plans sold through a broker. Good points.

    • LSM Insurance
      June 6, 2013 at 9:24 am

      Thanks Albert. You make a good point as well. Broker sold plans also offer a lot more flexibility and options than the HSBC plan.

  • Larry C
    May 13, 2013 at 4:19 pm

    an I get a $500,000 Term 30. I have high cholestrol and a fatty liver.

    • LSM Insurance
      May 14, 2013 at 8:16 am

      Hi Larry,

      Thanks for the note. Cholesterol is not usually an issue if under control. We will send you a separate email to get more details on your liver issues. Regards,

  • LSM Insurance
    March 15, 2010 at 12:08 pm

    Hi Helen,

    Thanks for the note. Canada Protection Plan is a reputable company their policies are underwritten and issued by Unity Life.

    They sell direct or via the independent broker network. The cost is the same withboth channels but in my opinion you get better service through the broker channel and they can also work out comparison scenarios with other companies.

    Regards … Lorne

  • Helen Clowery
    March 15, 2010 at 9:48 am

    Hi, interesting article but can you tell me if
    buying insurance form:

    Canadian protection plan life insurance

    is safe

    Thank you