The TK Advisor - The TK Group Ottawa Blog about Life Insurance, Critical Illness Insurance, Wealth Mangement and Estate Planning

True Insurance Broker , do you work with one ?

The consumer has a problem differentiating those individuals that are truly giving them products from a number of insurers vs one or maybe two . The insurance industry has different distribution systems with a captive producer that generally sells product from one specific insurer and the other side is a broker who represents a number of insurers . At the first glance , broker deal would look to be a better option for the client . It is only a better option if the individual is working as a "true" broker and representing a number of insurers .The reason you want to deal with true brokers is because as there are different insurers there are a variety of products . Some insurers focus their market on term products while others on whole life or universal life. The difference in premium between insurers can sometimes be small however on a permanent product they can be substantial . When analyzing product , premium is not the only component . If a permanent product is being looked at , cost of insurance can vary into thousands of dollars from one insurer to the next .When analyzing a product like Universal Life , a number of items have to be looked at and on the illustration received things like interest rate assumptions have to be looked at . Guarantees are very important in a permanent product , is your cost of insurance guaranteed level or does it increase each year . A true broker will show you products from at least three insurers and you will be surprised to find that there are differences . Some insurers will give a cheaper rate to cigar smokers then other insurers . When you have a health condition that you may think will prevent you from obtaining coverage , call a broker who will present you to a number of insurer . On a difficult case , we presented a client to 12 insurers in Canada and finally got one offer . We have submitted multiple applications on clients with varied results : Declined , 200 percent extra premiums and standard offer for the same individuals. Taking multiple applications is a great deal of work for us but this is one of the ways we can be certain that the client is going to get the best possible offer . If the broker has high production volumes , he or she will get the services of the high level underwriter at the insurance company which gives the client the best possible chance to secure a favorable underwriting decision . There are a number of very diligent people in our industry that value their client relationships and look for one of those to work with.

A true broker represents you and will

Critical Illness Insurance

Why have most Canadians overlooked this product which has been designed to meet the needs of : corporations and individuals ?

Critical Illness insurance in my estimation is the best product that I have seen in my 26 years of serving the insurance needs of corporate as well as professional clients ? Why ? It provides cash to those that need it the most . When ? After the insured survives a listed condition for 30 days  ,the policy pays out a lump sum of cash to the corporation or the insured individual.

With average waiting period to see a specialist in Ontario being over 16 weeks , it is easy to see the need for this product that provides cash to take you for treatment anywhere in the world . The payout can be used for whatever the recipient wants and it should   be customized to meet the specific need .

There are tax advantages that can be obtained in the corporate setting with this product and an experienced insurance adviser can explain the structure which must be followed to you .

All policies are not the same so be certain your adviser is a broker who is able to demonstrate different  policy designs as well contractual obligations under various insurers .

Critical Illness insurers protects your wealth and provides you with options if you are stricken with one of the condition that is covered under the contract . Three main payouts under this policy are for : heart attack , stroke and cancer . The payout that is most seen at claim time for men is heart attack and cancer . The policies pay out mostly for cancer and MS for females .

This year we delivered a $ 500,000 cheque to a client that has survived a critical illness and is now back to work . This product is not the same as the disability product which pays you if you are unable to work .

This is a excellent product that I feel is designed to be of exceptional value not only for individuals but also corporations .

Insurance audit can save you thousands of dollars

You may be asking yourself , why should I take my valuable time to complete an Insurance Audit ? Because it saves you premium dollars and taxes  !

I can easily say that 8 out of 10 corporate/professional clients have never closely examined the products they bought and have not taken the time to see how these products integrate into their personal situation .

Here are only a few "nightmares we have discovered while working with various clients. When begin our insurance audit , we ask for all contracts the client has as well as to think of any other coverages they have where they do not have actual contracts.    A number of times we are given a folder of documents to review and try to determine which policies are still in place . Also , on a number of occasions we review clients bank statements to determine if automatic withdrawals can lead us to contracts the client has forgotten they have . When we have completed our work , the client has a accurate record of what is in place and with which insurer .

On one file we uncovered that the client had over 20 thousand dollars in premiums being paid for policies he forgot he had to protect business deals that were long a go terminated .

On one occasion , the client had a large corporate life policy where the corporation was the premium payer as well as owner but beneficiaries were individual shareholders . On death of that client , CRA would consider the death benefit as a taxable benefit to each shareholder.

We have a client for which our firm was doing work in the area of Employee Benefits and I was brought in to do an audit on personal insurance for the  President/CEO as well as corporate  life insurance coverages . We discovered that the client was an occasional cigar smoker and a year previously policies were issued for: corporate life insurance , personal life insurance and  Key Person critical illness insurance . All the policies were placed with insurers that charged premiums which were same as a regular cigarette smoker . We were able to save this client over 30 thousand dollars in premium by switching the client to a insurer that gave better rates to occasional  cigar smokers. In addition to this there were 2 life policies issued one was corporate and the other was individual . Corporate policy , owner and premium payer was the corporation but the beneficiary was the clients wife . Corporate CFO had to add the premiums paid by the corporation as a taxable benefit to the president . We changed the corporate contract to reflect the structure it should have been created under at time of issue . When examining the Presidents personal policy , the client owned it as well as paid for it with after tax dollars and to our shock  ,the beneficiary was the " corporation".   

These are only a few "nightmares" we uncovered with our audits and our mission is to help corporations as well as professionals get maximum return for their premium dollars  .  Accountant and lawyers have come to depend on us to provide their clients with competent advice and protect the clients interests. 

We do not charge clients for insurance audits because when we demonstrate the value the clients chose to build a relationship  with us which is based on trust , knowledge and high service standards. 

Working with competent independent insurance specialists provides you with MAXIMUM return on your time as well as premium dollars .

CAN YOU TAKE A CHANCE WITH YOUR FUTURE BY NOT TAKING THE TIME TO DO THE INSURANCE AUDIT ?????????????????????????????????????????????                           

Helping our Clients Navigate Their Way to Success

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