Our lives are arguably the most valuable “possessions” we own and because we are quick to insure our cars and our homes, insuring our lives should be a no-brainer. This being said, it is not uncommon for instances to arise where your current life insurance policy is no longer needed. The most common reaction to an unwanted policy is to…
‘wealth accumulation’
Segregated Investment Funds
[:en]An Alternative Investment for Capital Preservation & Estate Planning Segregated Investment Funds are often misunderstood and underutilized by Financial Advisors and other Estate Planning professionals. The investment funds offered through insurance carriers provide unique benefits guarantees. Segregated funds offer both death benefit and capital guarantees in various forms. Some plans offer 100% death benefit guarantees from day 1 as well…
Your Genes, Your Business
In May 2017, the Canadian parliament passed the Genetic Non-Discrimination Act (GNA) – formerly known as Bill S-201. This Act, meant to prohibit and prevent discrimination, states that genetic test information can no longer be requested or used in rendering underwriting decisions. How this bill will impact underwriting and product pricing remains to be seen. In 2013, actress and activist…
Sharing Your Wealth with the Next Generation
[:en]Read Article Here – Updated October 25, 2018 Planning for the transition of wealth to your children and grandchildren doesn’t have to be a daunting task. It’s important to start discussing this now so you can understand the impact of tax on your estate assets and what steps you can take to plan for the future. Let’s consider some of…
How the 2019 Passive Investment Income Changes Affect Your Small Business
How the 2019 Passive Investment Income Changes Affect Your Small Business. After a lot of public debate in the tax and small business community around the way in which passive investment income is taxed in Canadian controlled private corporations, the changes that were announced in the 2018 Federal Budget are now law. These changes will limit the amount of the…
Donating to Charity Using Life Insurance
[:en]If you are interested in creating a legacy at your death by making a charitable donation, you may wish to investigate using life insurance for that purpose. There are different ways you can structure life insurance for use in philanthropy. The most common are: Getting an Existing Life Insurance Policy If you currently own a life insurance policy, you can…
Critical Illness – Are You Protected?
[:en]Why a Doctor Invented Critical Illness Insurance Critical Illness insurance was invented by Dr. Marius Barnard. Marius assisted his brother Dr. Christiaan Barnard in performing the first successful heart transplant in 1967 in South Africa. Through his years of dealing with cardiac patients, Marius observed that those patients that were better able to deal with the financial stress of their…
What the Wealthy Know about Life Insurance
If you have ever thought that life insurance was something you wouldn’t need after you reached a certain level of financial security, you might be interested in knowing why many wealthy individuals still carry large amounts of insurance. Consider the following: A life insurance advisor in California recently placed a $201 million dollar life insurance policy on the life of…
Canada Pension Plan – Should You Take it Early?
[:en]The new rules governing CPP were introduced in 2012 and they take full effect in 2016. The earliest you can take your CPP Pension is age 60, the latest is 70. The standard question regarding CPP remains the same – should I take it early or wait? While you can elect to start receiving CPP at age 60, the discount…
Boomer + Sandwich Generation + Club Sandwich + Boomerang = Financial Instability
[:en]The Sandwich Generation was a term coined by Dorothy Miller in 1981 to describe adult children who were “sandwiched” between their aging parents and their own maturing children. There is even a term for those of us who are in our 50’s or 60’s with elderly parents, adult children and grandchildren – the Club Sandwich. More recently, the Boomerang Generation…