Insurance

A life insurance policy is a bilateral contract between you and an insurance company. The premise of life insurance is that in exchange for regular premiums made to the policy while the policyholder is alive, the insurer will pay cash to the policyholder’s beneficiaries as a lump sum or in installments upon the holder’s death. The life insurance coverage amount you need is really a personal choice and dependent upon the annual expenses that your beneficiaries are expected to incur, as well as other costs (such as the education of a child) that you want to fund. To select the optimal type of life insurance for your needs, it is advisable to gather insurance quotes from several insurers and evaluate their terms, conditions and pricing (i.e., your premium) fully to determine what’s best for you and your family.

Title insurance is a type of insurance policy that serves to protect property owners (both residential and commercial) and their lenders against financial losses incurred from defects to the title of a property. The ‘title’ refers to the legal ownership of a particular property. Title insurance can be purchased from an insurance broker and covers things like title fraud, errors made in surveys or the government’s land registration system, existing liens against the title (resulting from something like an unpaid utility bill by a previous owner) or other issues that prevent you from having clear property ownership.

In short, a deductible is any payment that you make out of pocket to cover a loss before your insurance coverage kicks in. When buying car insurance, you are asked to choose a deductible which then influences the premium you pay on a monthly basis. Naturally, the higher the deductible, the lower the premium. So for example, if you have a deductible of $500 on your insurance policy and are in an accident with damages of $5,000, your insurer will send you a check for $4,500 while you will be responsible for paying the remaining $500 from your own funds.

Car insurance can vary greatly from person to person based on the geographic location of the person, their age, car make/model, annual mileage, driving record etc. Drivers in different provinces pay different rates of car insurance on average as well. For example, according to a 2018 study by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, drivers in British Columbia paid the highest rates of insurance ($1,832 per year) closely followed by Ontario ($1,505) and Alberta ($1,316) while PEI ($816) and Quebec ($717) paid the least.

Employment insurance (EI for short) is a social benefit provided by the government of Canada to people who lose their jobs due to circumstances outside of their control. EI offers temporary financial assistance to such individuals to help cover living costs in the interim period while they look for a new job.

Beneficiaries of life insurance in Canada generally do not need to pay income taxes on the death benefits received from a life insurance policy unless the death benefits are paid to an estate. If the death benefit is paid to an individual or multiple individuals as a lump sum or in instalments, it is not treated as taxable income on their tax return for the next year.

Yes, speeding tickets do indeed impact your car insurance premiums in an adverse way. The quantum of the impact to your premiums depends on the speed you were driving at. For example, a driver driving 0-15 km/hr over the speed limit will not see as big of an increase in premiums as a driver driving 50+ km/hr over the limit. In addition, the increase to your premiums may not be immediate. When you pay a speeding ticket, you are essentially admitting to your fault. At this point, it gets recorded in your driving record by the Ministry of Transportation or equivalent authority. Thereafter, when you go to renew your auto insurance, your insurer will look at your record and adjust your premium accordingly.

Tenant insurance is an insurance policy provided to renters of residential or commercial properties to help replace or repair personal belongings that were lost or damaged due to fire, water leaks, or other such incidents. Tenant insurance also helps mitigate the personal liability of the renter in case of an event where an external person suffers an injury on the property.

Yes, you can drive your parents’ car without insurance. However, this can only be done under certain restrictions, including that you hold a valid driver’s license, have your parents’ explicit permission, and are not listed as an excluded driver on the insurance policy that your parents hold. Additionally, if you plan to drive their car regularly, you need to be listed as a secondary driver on the vehicle insurance policy.

In the world of insurance, a deductible is simply the amount that you need to pay out of pocket before your insurance kicks in. Usually, a deductible is expressed as a specific dollar amount, but it can also be listed as a percentage of the total insurance on the policy. For example, if you have a $5,000 claim and a $1,000 deductible, your insurance company will send you a check for $4,000 and you will be responsible for paying the remaining $1,000.

In Canada, we are privileged to have a public healthcare system that makes critical illness insurance slightly less necessary as compared to other nations that do not enjoy the same benefits. If you have supplemental health insurance from your employer, other expenses such as private care or prescriptions will further be taken care of. However, critical illness insurance may still be worth it to replace your lost income in the period where you are unable to work due to the illness.

There are two main revenue streams for insurance companies. The first revenue stream is the premiums charged to customers (usually on a monthly basis). These premiums are charged in exchange for the coverage provided against adverse events. The second revenue stream is through the investments they make. Once premiums are collected, they are pooled together to make up a ‘float’. This float is then invested into various assets such as equities and fixed income to generate returns. Some of these returns are naturally used to pay out losses while the residual income is profit for the insurer.

The most important thing to consider when looking for a cryptocurrency platform are the associated fees. This includes deposit fees, transaction fees (buying and selling), and in your case, withdrawal fees. Using our cryptocurrency exchange comparison tool, you can check “Withdrawal” in the left sidebar and you will get a list of platforms that offer this option. According to our comparison tool, BitBuy, NDAX and MyBTC.ca have the lowest fees and therefore give you the highest return. When you want to withdraw Bitcoins to put them on your Ledger key, the platforms usually charge a mining fee. This is not the case with MyBTC.ca: since it is a non-custodian, you must to your cryptocurrency in a wallet. As for selling your Bitcoins, it is the selling fees that will interest you. Among the most affordable are BitBuy and NDAX, with a fixed fee of 0.2% per transaction.