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

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 ?????????????????????????????????????????????                           

Insurance is a very valuable financial tool but it can be expensive !

Most people have some form of insurance and most people do not know the details of their coverages . These people are wasting their premium dollars because their insurance coverage is not always doing what it should for them . Do yourself a favor , engage a independent insurance professional to complete an Insurance Audit . You will save dollars , get a piece of mind and be properly protected . People have saved thousands of dollars and I am responsible for giving them appropriate advice . If you were putting your insurance premiums into a investment , would you want to know the details as well as how it is performing ? If you answered yes then why not get a complimentary insurance audit !

Life Insurance Premiums Quoted , are they realistic ?

I received a email from a client on Friday asking me why premium quoted by me for his brothers life insurance policy owned by his corporation was  higher then that which his brother received from his Cooperators agent . This client knows we are a broker so he was surprised that one of our other 10 companies we represent could not provide lower premiums . After asking the client what was the quote , I was told that he was quoted PREFERRED rates , We always quote people regular rates and when they qualify AFTER ALL MEDICALS ARE RECEIVED AND ACCEPTED TO QUALIFY for this PREFERRED rate the insurer gives then that lower rate.  Client assured me his brother is in " Excellent" health and he would qualify . My executive assistant Catherine sent the client PREFERRED rates from our insurers and all of them beat his  brother's quoted PREFERRED rate by 20 percent .Some insurance SALES people play this SMOKE AND MIRRORS  game making the client believe they will always qualify for Preferred rates when only  about 40 percent of applicants ACTUALLY  qualify for lower Preferred rates . To qualify for these PREFERRED rates you need to have good health history , no lifestyle issues like car racing and your direct family have to  to be in good health ( parents and siblings ) . Since we never know how any one of our chosen insurers will look at client we would present our clients as well as potential clients with regular stated rates .

Declined insurance coverage , rated with extra premiums or have exclusion in your policy !

wHY DO WE REPRESENT 10 LEADING INSURERS ? All insurance companies are not equal and underwriters differ from one company to another . On one occasion we had to go to 10 insurers to get a policy for a client that had health issues but we managed to get a 1 million policy issued . One would think that a individual would get similar offer from insurers on a specific policy however not so . We have had situations on same client where one company says no way do we want him , second one said we want 300 percent extra premiums while third insurer accepted them on regular standard premium . Having strong underwriters at insurance company is a huge advantage for any insurance professional and also having this type of relationships with numerous insurers is essential . Let me give you a simple example , some insurers are better suited for obtaining coverage on diabetic's while others have no desire for that type of risk . If you have had cancer do not assume you will be rated or worse yet can never get insurers . We have secured coverage for cancer survivors with standard life insurance premiums and at times rated . Never assume !