Life Insurance in Canada

Strange as it may seem, it is true that weather insurance not only exists, but it is one of the oldest types of insurance at all. Weather has been the crucial factor for farmers and their earnings, ever since the beginning of agriculture. The modern weather insurance can cover much more than crops.

Rain is the most common target of weather insurance. The good news is that rain insurance is quite common and quite easy to find. Regarding rain policies, you can pick rain accumulation policies (for this, you need to determine how much rain would still be acceptable for your event and how much would already waste it) or dry hours (how many hours in a period of time were without any rain). Analogically, you can insure your event against snow - either determine the amount of inches snowed per one session or per one storm. Municipalities and public organs can buy a particular version to cover extra costs – snow removal insurance.

And that is only where the whole business begins. There is wind insurance against bad wind conditions, great for instance for a hot air ballooning show. An ice cream promotion can buy temperature insurance to secure the investment in the face of bad weather.

Normally you can choose your own combination of the different policies suitable for your event. Typical clients are film productions (and many insurance companies tailor special policies just for the film industry, for example conditions of underwater visibility or lack of snow). Managers of sports events, concerts, festivals or trade shows are also typical clients of weather insurance. But also other people, who don’t earn money depending on weather, like me, selling life insurance, but who are enjoying some free time activities or going for holidays, can buy such insurance.

This quite new product is just acquiring clients around the world. You can get some of your money back if it rains more than usually during your holidays - this is for sale by certain French travel agencies, in cooperation with Aon France. Equally, German airline Lufthansa has made available a new sunshine insurance. Passengers from Germany can pay €20 ($31.24) for a simple insurance policy, which will give them €20 back for each day during their holiday that was spoilt by more than 5mm of rain.

Naturally, weather insurance is probably not needed when you are travelling to Tunisia or Greece. However, when travelling to Vancouver, weather insurance might not be available. But just asking is for free.

Life insurance, long term care, disability insurance - we all have bought at least some of these products. They are well known options to shield financial safety of our everyday life. The selection of insurance types is quite wide, however conservative it may look at the first sight. But don’t be surprised when you find out about the unexpected variety even in the insurance world. Strange or at least a bit funny, that is how some special policies look. You can for instance purchase insurance for your special events.

Imagine yourself organizing a wonderful wedding ceremony full of romance - taking place on the beach, with roses all around and guest count going into hundreds. But in the worst possible scenario, it may happen that just before the ceremony starts, you step on your veil, slip and end up with a broken leg. For such cases, there is a special insurance policy available, if only to limit the damage to the minimum. No matter if you need to insure a birthday party, a wedding ceremony or a bar mitzvah, almost all attributes of the event can be covered if you choose a suitable product. The most often used insurance types are liability and cancellation insurance, but you can tailor the insurance according to your specific needs. But what to do if you have dreamed of an outdoor ceremony and the weather shows you its unfriendly face? No problem, if you buy the insurance in advance (around two weeks), you can ask also for this protection.

And there are many more options regarding your events insurance. If an unskilled photographer by mischance damages the pictures, the insurance will help you to retake it. You can also sign up for an insurance covering all the gifts, jewellery or rental property. And think about a case of a bride running away from the altar… Yes, believe me; you can cover cold feet too

Event insurance is in some of the most famous world insurers’ selection Allianz offers it via Fireman’s Fund subsidiary; Axa adds fireworks and Christmas light insurance, some other offer the option to cover alcohol related accidents. The basic coverage can often be bought a bit below $100.

Shortly said, all your events can be covered from the beginning till the end.

Losing your mobility due to an unexpected accident connected to work or sport - that is the traditional explanation of the word ‘disability’ for most people. But as we can understand from the statistics, the reality is quite different: twice more people end up handicapped because of a serious illness (cancer, diabetes or heart disease) than due to an accident.

You and becoming handicapped?

People under 65 years of age are twice as much likely to get long-term handicapped than to die due to accident or illness. But course~naturally} with growing age, also the chances that a person will become handicapped are increasing:

• 3 in 100 children under 14 years of age become handicapped
• 4 in 100 young adults between 15 to 24 become handicapped
• out of every 100 adults between 25 - 44 years, 7 are handicapped
• 17 in 100 adults between 45 to 64 become handicapped
• 40 in 100 adults 65 and over become handicapped
• out of every 100 adults over 75 years, 53 are handicapped

4.4 million of Canadian inhabitants (14%) are officially handicapped at the moment.

What can you expect when you apply for disability insurance?

There are different people who have different needs and get into different situations, therefore the selection of different types of insurance is quite wide. Life insurance, for example, is offered to provide a sufficient cash coverage for those that are hit by the sudden loss not only emotionally, but also financially. On the other hand when a person becomes (completely) handicapped, not only the person is not fit to maintain sufficient income for themselves and their family, but on the top of that the extra medical and other care for this person takes even more money out of their pocket, or the pocket of their family that has to provide the extra care for the once self-supporting. So the disability insurance is often more profitable than the life insurance. Nevertheless, there are different definitions of disability, meaning that some handicapped people are able to have some kind of a job, but the statistics tell us that some 15% of people filing for bankruptcy are giving illness or accident as a reason. Handicapped people can sign up for some government contributions, but this is only a limited option. The coverage group plans won’t match your present income either: they mostly cover only 50% to 60% of your net income.

If you are thinking about enrolling for disability insurance, first think about the possibilities you would have in case you couldn’t earn a sufficient amount of money.

You might decide to:

* place the confidence in your spouse/family
* rely on your savings or retirement funds
* get rid of your property or other assets
* get a loan
* have a reliable disability insurance that covers your missing income