Cover what your family would still owe.

What life insurance is actually for

It replaces money that would stop arriving. That is the whole mechanism. Everything else — the product names, the riders, the illustrations with sixty years of projected values — sits on top of that one idea.

So the useful question is not “how much life insurance should I have?” It is what would my household still have to pay for, and for how long, if my income stopped? Answer that and the coverage amount falls out of it.

Working out the number

Add up:

• Debts that would survive you — mortgage balance, car loans, line of credit, credit cards.
• Income to replace — your net contribution to the household, times the number of years your family would need it. Until the youngest child finishes school is a common anchor.
• One-off costs — final expenses, and any tax owing on assets that transfer at death.
• Education — what you intend to fund, less what is already in an RESP.

Then subtract what already exists:

• Group life insurance through your employer, and your spouse’s.
• Any existing individual policy, including old ones you have half forgotten.
• Liquid savings your family could reasonably use.

What remains is the gap. That is the number worth insuring, and it is the ceiling on anything I will recommend. The coverage calculator runs the same arithmetic in your browser if you want to try it before we speak.

Term versus permanent, without the sales pitch

That last row is on the page deliberately. It is the clearest conflict of interest in this business, and you should know about it before anyone shows you an illustration. The full disclosure is on Companies I represent.

When permanent is the right answer

• A dependant with a disability who will need support for life.
• A capital gain that will trigger tax at death — a rental property, a family cottage, shares in a private company.
• Estate equalisation where one child inherits a business and another needs to be made whole.
• A charitable bequest you want to guarantee.

Notice what is not on that list: “as an investment”. Permanent life insurance can hold value, and for a small number of people with maxed registered accounts and a real estate problem it is a sensible tool. For most households, filling a TFSA and an RRSP first is simply better.

The riders worth understanding

• Convertibility — the right to convert a term policy to permanent later without new medical evidence. Genuinely valuable, often free, and frequently overlooked. Check the deadline.
• Renewability — the policy continues past the term without new underwriting, at a much higher premium. A safety net, not a plan.
• Waiver of premium — the insurer pays your premiums if you become disabled. Cheap, and it protects the coverage precisely when you cannot afford to lose it.
• Child rider — small coverage on children, usually convertible later. Modest cost, and the guaranteed insurability is the real point.

What I need from you, and what I do not

To quote, I need your date of birth, whether you smoke, your general health history and the coverage amount. That is it. I do not need your social insurance number, your banking details or a copy of your ID at the quoting stage — and there is deliberately no field for a SIN anywhere on this site. When you decide to apply, the application is completed in the insurer’s own secure system, where that information belongs.