Business owners
If your co-owner dies tonight, who owns their half tomorrow?
The shares do not evaporate. They go somewhere, and if nothing was written down they go to an estate.
Protection
You insured the house and the car. What about the likely one?
Most people carry cover against the things least likely to happen to them, and nothing against the thing most likely to.
The house is insured. The car is insured. There is life cover somewhere, probably through the practice or a group plan, and you would have to go and look to say how much.
Ask what the chances are of something major happening to the house this year, of a serious car accident, of dying before sixty-five. Most people rank those correctly, worst to least. What surprises people is the size of the gaps.
There is a fourth one that almost nobody ranks, because nobody has ever put it on the same list as the other three.
What it comes to
1 in 3
Critical illness before sixty-five. A planning figure, and it carries a verify flag.
Set that against a house claim at around 1 in 1,200 a year and a serious car accident at roughly 1 in 270. This figure and the 1 in 98 death-before-65 figure are widely used planning numbers rather than measured ones, and both should be confirmed against current data before anyone relies on either. Our own critical illness deck flags the first.
Which of the four are you actually covered for?
House, around one in twelve hundred a year. Serious car accident, roughly one in two hundred and seventy. Dying before sixty-five, about one in ninety-eight for a forty-year-old. Critical illness before sixty-five sits at about one in three.
Those last two are planning figures rather than measured ones, and both carry a flag in our own material. We would rather say so here than have you quote them at your accountant.
You almost certainly have cover for the first two. Quite likely the third. The fourth is the one most people are carrying entirely themselves, and it is the one that is not really a maybe.
A widely used planning number. Confirm it against current data before relying on it, and apply the same caution to the one in three.
What changed while nobody was updating the plan?
Dr Marius Barnard was a cardiac surgeon. He designed critical illness cover after watching the same thing happen over and over in his own follow-up clinics. His patients survived. The surgery worked. And then they lost the house.
He put it better than we can. You need insurance not only because you are going to die, but because you are going to live.
That shift happened quietly across about forty years. Cancer, heart attack and stroke used to be mostly about death. Now they are mostly about survival. Roughly sixty-two percent of people diagnosed with cancer survive it. Eighty-two percent survive a first heart attack. Around seventy-five percent survive a first stroke.
Good news, obviously. It also moved the financial problem. Life insurance answers a death. It has nothing to say about the eighteen months where you are alive, not working, and everything still costs what it cost.
What does surviving actually cost?
Somebody takes time off. Then their spouse takes time off, because somebody has to drive to appointments. That is two incomes, not one.
The mortgage carries on. The lease on the practice carries on. Staff still get paid, because you would like a practice to come back to.
Then the part nobody budgets. Drugs that are not covered. A treatment that is available somewhere else and not here. Travel, lodging and food while you are not earning. Someone to help at home. A vehicle or a bathroom that needs changing. None of it is exotic. It is just expensive, and it arrives in the year your income falls over.
137,295
Canadians who filed a personal bankruptcy or consumer proposal in 2024, up 11.4% on the year before
Canadian households owe roughly $1.75 for every dollar of after-tax income. That is the starting position for most households before anything goes wrong.
If it happened next month, what gets sold first?
When somebody tells us they would manage, this is the question we ask, and it is usually the only one that has to be asked.
RRSP. Non-registered savings. The kids' education money. The house. A loan from the bank, if the bank is feeling generous about lending to somebody who has just stopped working. Family. Friends.
Everyone has an order. Most people have never said it out loud. Saying it out loud is usually the moment the conversation changes, because the list is always shorter than people think and it is always in the wrong order.
What the cover is, in one line: a lump sum received without tax in your hands if you are diagnosed with a covered condition and you survive the waiting period, usually thirty days. No receipts and no claim form for each expense. We are deliberately not naming a product or an insurer, because the wording is the product and the wording differs.
The arithmetic
| The risk | Roughly |
|---|---|
| Something major happens to your house this year | about 1 in 1,200 |
| A serious car accident | about 1 in 270 |
| Dying before sixty-five, if you are forty now | about 1 in 98, verify |
| A critical illness before sixty-five | about 1 in 3, verify |
| You almost certainly hold cover for the first two, quite likely the third, and rarely the fourth. Home and car figures are Statistics Canada. The two marked verify are widely used planning numbers and must be confirmed against current data before anyone relies on either. | |
This week
None of them needs us, and none of them needs an appointment.
Worth doing this week
When this is not your problem
There is a version of this where you genuinely do not need the cover. If the mortgage is gone, there are two years of spending sitting in accessible savings, the practice runs without you for a year, and a spouse's income carries the household, then you are self-insuring on purpose and that is a legitimate answer. The premium is real money leaving every month and it buys nothing in most years. What we would not do is let somebody assume they are in that position without going through the list out loud. And most of the value in this particular conversation is in the contract wording rather than the premium, so the honest first step is having someone read what you already own rather than buying anything.
Is this one actually happening on your file?
Fifteen minutes on the phone is usually enough to tell. You describe the structure, we ask questions, and nothing is presented at you. There is nothing to send in advance and nothing arrives afterwards unless you ask for it.
Have someone read what you already ownBring the policy rather than the brochure. Fifteen minutes, and if what you have is adequate we will say so.
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The article
You insured the house. You insured the car.
Most people carry cover against the things least likely to happen to them, and nothing against the thing most likely to.
Sources and cautions
Sources and cautions. Home and car figures are Statistics Canada. The one in three before 65 critical illness figure and the one in 98 death-before-65 figure are widely used planning numbers and should be confirmed against current data before you rely on either. Survival rates and lifetime cancer incidence: Canadian Cancer Society and Heart and Stroke, 2025 estimates. Insolvency figures: Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, Insolvency Statistics in Canada 2024. Household debt-to-disposable-income of 174.9%, which is the $1.75 per dollar quoted here: Statistics Canada, National Balance Sheet Accounts, Q2 2025. Covered conditions, waiting periods, partial benefits and premium-return features are set by each contract and vary, so read the policy rather than the brochure. General information, not advice, and not a recommendation of any product. Prabhjit Virk is not a Canadian CPA. Life insurance licences are held in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario; Quebec is pending. Provincial rates and rules quoted here are British Columbia figures unless stated. Alberta and Ontario differ.