Disability insurance can save you from financial ruin A sudden disability – from accident or illness – could ruin your family financially. Depleting your savings, cashing in investments, or selling your home can be the result of huge disability and rehab costs not...
Three basic RRSP maturity options Unlike a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA), a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) does not last forever. In fact, it has a specific date by which you must collapse the plan and choose one of three main options for what to do...
The big business of life, mortgage, and critical illness insurance Insurance is a numbers game. Anyone who has ever purchased any kind of life or health insurance knows this firsthand. But here’s one number you won’t often hear about: $4.7 trillion (no mistake,...
You must act by Dec. 31! If you turned 71 this year, and you still have an RRSP, you have until Dec. 31 this year to convert it into another type of tax-sheltered plan. If you don’t, the Canada Revenue Agency can take away up to half of whatever is in your RRSP....
Caution: CDIC covers cash deposits and not much else The term “Registered Retirement Savings Plan” conjures up all sorts of visions of guarantees and “official” protection against loss. After all, it’s “registered,” isn’t it? Actually, investments held in your RRSP...
Term life or universal life – and the difference it makes If you’re shopping around for life insurance for the first time, it’s easy to become pretty confused pretty fast. Here’s a primer on the difference between term life insurance and universal life. As the name...
Title insurance can protect you while you’re away If you typically spend the winter months in the sunny south somewhere, your Canadian home is likely to be unoccupied. That could leave you open to mortgage fraud (even though you might not have had a mortgage on the...
Critical illness and disability insurance essential for businesspeople After you’ve worked so hard to build a successful business, the thought of losing it to disability or illness is something every entrepreneur needs to think about long and hard. There are two...
Why you might need both on the road to recovery Many people often confuse disability insurance and long-term care insurance. In fact, these are not the same thing, and you should not assume that if you have a disability plan through your employer, you are also...
The steep ‘peace-of-mind’ premium Both mutual funds and segregated funds provide investors the opportunity to invest in stocks and bonds managed by a professional money manager. The managers of both mutual funds and segregated funds look to invest the funds...
Three ways to use your funds – and how they work Gen-Xers, Gen-Yers, and Millennials should all have RRSPs. Sadly, most do not. The smart ones do, and are taking advantage of the powerful long-term compounding and tax-sheltering benefits of this wonderful...
Get adequate life and disability coverage first Critical illness insurance has become quite popular in the past few years. But do you really need it? I’m often asked this by younger professionals with high incomes and new families. What if something were to happen...