Life guides · No. 1xiaonengren.org

Insurance in Canada: what you already have, what to buy — and some straight talk

Half of Canadian insurance you already have (public health care, workers compensation, Employment Insurance). The other half you buy yourself (auto, home, life). This one page covers it: how to choose visitor insurance before you land, how students and children are covered, what tenant insurance does, which provinces sell auto insurance themselves, where to check that an agent is licensed, the three kinds of life insurance, and which parts of the tax pitch are true.

⚠️ This page points the way only. It is general information, not insurance, financial, tax or legal advice. Your policy contract and the official pages prevail. We sell no insurance, we endorse no agent or company, and we take no referral fees. That is our code of conduct. Every link and statement on this page was checked against official pages on 2026-08-27 and 2026-08-29, in two batches. Provincial content uses B.C. as the example.

0. Count what you already have

In one line: do not spend yet. First count the coverage you already carry. Then buy only what is missing.

Already yours	Covers	Where from
Public health care (called MSP in B.C., the government-paid health plan)	Most of your doctor and hospital care	You have it because you are a resident (guide No. 5)
Workers compensation (WorkSafeBC in B.C.)	Injuries at work: treatment and lost wages	Employers must carry it. It costs you nothing
Employment Insurance (EI)	Income while you are out of work, on maternity or parental leave, or off sick	Deducted from every paycheque (No. 9)
Your employer’s group benefits (if you have them)	Often drug costs, dental, glasses, life and disability cover	In the onboarding booklet almost nobody reads
Credit-card insurance (if any)	Often travel medical, rental-car damage and delays	In the card’s benefits guide

Note: EI and workers compensation cover employees only. If you are self-employed you get neither automatically. EI special benefits require you to opt in, and WorkSafeBC coverage you have to buy yourself.

What you actually buy comes down to five things: auto (you must have it to drive), home or tenant (lenders require it, and landlords often do), life, disability and critical illness, and travel medical. One iron rule: count the free coverage first. Buying a duplicate is burning money. For example, if work already gives you twice your salary in life cover, a single person may well be fine for now.

1. Before you land, and right after: visitor medical insurance

There are days when public health care does not cover you: before you land, during the coverage wait, and for the whole of a visitor stay. Those are exactly the most expensive days to fall ill in Canada. One night in the emergency room can be billed in the thousands, and you pay all of it. Visitor medical insurance, also called travel medical insurance, exists for those days.

When to buy: before you land. Set the start date to your landing day. New PRs (permanent residents) and work-permit holders also face a health-care wait after landing, and this insurance bridges it (how long the wait is: guide No. 2).
For super-visa parents this is a hard condition of the visa (official wording, verified 2026-08-29): private medical insurance that lasts at least 1 year from the day you enter, bought from a Canadian insurance company, or a foreign company approved by the minister. When you renew, do not let the coverage lapse.

How to choose (we endorse no company — we just give you the method)

Lean toward an insurer based in Canada. Why? Because its direct-billing hospital network is here, its claims staff work in your time zone, and for super-visa compliance you do not have to check the minister-approved list.
Compare four things, and compare the policy wording, not the ads. One: the coverage amount (ER bills are large, so do not skimp). Two: the deductible, which is the part you pay yourself before the insurer pays anything — a lower deductible means a higher premium. Three: the pre-existing-conditions clause, meaning conditions you already had before you bought the policy; policies often require the condition to be “stable” for a set number of months. Four: whether the insurer bills the hospital directly, or you pay first and claim it back later.
Check the company and the agent. Check an agent through the provincial regulator (the licence table is in section 4). For life-and-health insurers, check whether the company is an Assuris member (Assuris is the backstop if an insurer goes under — section 9).
Where to buy: directly from the company, or through a licensed agent. Either works. With the same wording, get several quotes.

2. Children and students: insurance through the school years

Stage	Medical coverage	What to handle yourself
Resident students (K-12)	MSP (whether public school is free depends on the parents’ status: guide No. 4, section 3)	No extra medical insurance needed. Dental and vision go through a parent’s group benefits, or through the CDCP, the Canadian Dental Care Plan (No. 9)
International students · K-12	B.C.: a study permit of 6 months or more qualifies for MSP, but you pay a $75-per-month International Student Health Fee (ISHF, charged since 2019, per person, for K-12 and post-secondary alike)	Coverage for the MSP wait is often arranged by the school or the district, and it may already be inside the tuition. Ask the district’s international office before term starts, and do not buy it twice
International students · post-secondary	B.C.: the same. MSP plus the $75/month ISHF	The school group plan (extended health, meaning drug, dental and vision costs) usually enrols you automatically and is billed with your tuition. It tops MSP up rather than repeating it. If it is included, do not buy overlapping cover
Accompanying parents	You are here as a visitor, so you need visitor insurance (section 1)	Count the child’s cover and your own separately

💡 In the first week of term, ask two questions. ① “Is medical insurance included in the tuition, and until what date?” ② “Has MSP been applied for, and who covers the wait?” The International Student Office, or the district’s international program, can answer both in one conversation.

3. Renting: tenant insurance

The landlord’s insurance covers the building. It does not cover your belongings. If there is a fire, a flood or a theft, your laptop, furniture and clothes are covered only by a policy you bought yourself.

According to the FCAC, tenant’s insurance typically pays for three things: damage to or loss of your possessions, personal property stolen from your vehicle, and accidental damage you cause to the building. Many policies also pay temporary living costs after a covered event. The wording varies between companies, and your own policy prevails.
Setting the amount: work out what it would cost to buy everything you own all over again, and use that figure.
Leases often ask tenants for proof of insurance. Monthly premiums are modest. Go by actual quotes.
Running a business from home: residential policies generally do not cover business equipment, and do not cover business liability. Tell your insurer. Read this alongside the home-business notes in guide No. 8.

4. Province by province: public or private auto — and where to verify a licence

In one line: insurance is run by each province. The biggest difference is auto insurance: four provinces sell it themselves. Each province also runs its own licence lookup.

The auto map

Government-run provinces: B.C. (ICBC), Saskatchewan (SGI) and Manitoba (MPI). Basic auto insurance comes only from the public insurer. Optional extras you can shop around for. Quebec is a mix: injury cover comes from the government agency SAAQ, and vehicle damage you buy privately;
Private-market provinces: Ontario, Alberta and the rest. Fully market-based, so shopping around pays;
If you move to another province, you must buy auto insurance again in the new province. The same goes for switching your licence. The deadline is set by the new province: 90 days in B.C., 60 days in Ontario. See No. 2.

The 30-second licence check

Anyone selling insurance must hold a licence. The registers are public and free to search. One name search before you sign is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy:

Province	Where	Note
B.C.	Insurance Council of BC	Both life agents and general insurance agents
Alberta	Alberta Insurance Council	The same
Ontario	FSRA (agent register linked below)	The main site blocks automated checks. It opens fine in a browser ※
Quebec	AMF register	Also ※
Elsewhere	CISRO (national council of regulators)	The master directory. Find your own province’s regulator here

The licensed insurance partners listed on this site were checked against these same registers before we listed them. One method, open to everyone.

5. The three kinds of life insurance, one table

In one line: term is pure protection. Whole and universal are protection plus a savings jar, at several times the price. The dividing line between them is cash value, meaning money you can get back.

	Term	Whole life	Universal
Duration	A span you choose (10/20/30 yrs)	Lifetime	Lifetime
Premiums	Cheap. The cost jumps when you renew	High, but locked in	High, with flexible payments
Cash value	None. You get nothing back if you cancel, and you cannot borrow against it (FCAC wording)	Builds up year by year	Includes an investment account, which can rise or fall with the markets (FCAC wording)
Plain-words role	Cover the scariest years for little money	Forced savings plus lifelong cover	An investment account in an insurance shell

What most young families do (this is not advice for your own case): use cheap term insurance to fully cover the vulnerable years, while the children are at home and the mortgage is unpaid. Put the money you save into tax shelters that carry no insurance commissions, such as the TFSA (Tax-Free Savings Account) and the RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan). Whole and universal policies have their uses (see the next section), but usually only once your registered accounts are already full.

6. Policy loans and the tax pitch: which parts are true

In one line: only policies with cash value (whole and universal) let you borrow against them, and the tax advantages are real. The trap begins when those two truths are used to sell you more than you need.

Which policies you can borrow against (FCAC wording)

Term: no. There is no cash value, so there is nothing to borrow against;
Whole and universal: yes. There are two routes: ① a policy loan from the insurer; ② using the cash value as collateral for a bank loan. Both have to be repaid. Anything left unpaid, principal and interest, comes out of the death benefit, so your family receives less;
You can also cancel the policy and take the cash value. But the official caution stands: you usually get back less than you paid in, and it is worst in the early years.

The true parts of the tax pitch

The death benefit is tax-free. In FCAC wording, beneficiaries receive a one-time, tax-free payment;
Growth inside the policy can build up without yearly tax, as long as the policy meets the exempt-policy rules in the tax law;
Name a person as the beneficiary, not your estate. The payout then skips probate, the court process for settling an estate. It arrives faster, with no probate fees taken off it.

The trap parts

Here is the full cost list that the sales pitch tends to skip. ① Premiums run many times what term insurance costs, with high fees and commissions built in. ② Cash value grows painfully slowly at first, so cancelling early means a real loss. ③ Taking money out, leaving a loan unpaid, or putting in more than the limit can all create a taxable event. The "tax-free" part comes with conditions. ④ For most households, the commission-free tax shelters — TFSA, RRSP, FHSA (First Home Savings Account) and RESP (Registered Education Savings Plan) — are not even full yet. Buying investment-flavoured insurance before filling those is the wrong order. The people it genuinely fits (high earners whose registered accounts are already full, or people with estate or company needs) will work through the numbers with a licensed advisor and an accountant together. Having both professionals in the room is the baseline for plans like these.

7. By status: what your immigration status changes

Status	What matters
Tourists / visiting family	Public health care does not cover you. An ER visit is billed in full, and that can be thousands for one night. Buy travel medical insurance before you land. Keep every receipt for your claim
Super-visa parents	Private medical insurance is a condition of the visa. Official wording: at least 1 year from the day you enter, from a Canadian insurer or a foreign company approved by the minister. Never let it lapse when you renew
International students	Most schools enrol you automatically in a group health plan, billed with your tuition. In B.C., a permit of 6 months or more also requires MSP, plus the $75/month International Student Health Fee (details in section 2; the wait period in No. 2). The two cover different things, so learn both
Work permit	MSP (for permits of 6 months or more), plus your employer’s group benefits. Those benefits vanish the day you leave the job. Plug the drug and dental gap before you jump to self-employment
New PRs/citizens	Bridge the health-care wait with temporary private cover (No. 2). When you buy life insurance, telling the full truth about your health history is the lifeline. A false statement on the application lets the insurer cancel the policy and refuse the claim within the first two years. If the false statement was deliberate (fraud), the insurer can still do so after two years

Life insurance rarely looks at your immigration status. It looks at where you live and at your health. But full disclosure matters the same for everyone. Saying you do not smoke when you do, or leaving out part of your history, turns the premiums you saved into a denial letter later.

8. By age: the gap to close first at each stage

Stage	Look at first	Straight talk
20s–30s, single	Disability insurance (it protects your income), not life insurance	Nobody depends on you for money yet, so life insurance is not urgent. But you depend on your own income. If you are off sick or injured for a year, disability cover is the net that catches you. Employees: check whether the group plan includes it, and whether it is enough. Self-employed: buy your own
Kids and a mortgage	Enough term life insurance on both partners, plus disability	How much? Enough to clear the mortgage and raise the children. Insure the stay-at-home partner too, because paying someone else to do that care costs real money. Name people as beneficiaries, not the estate
Around 50	The last window to buy critical illness cover; also re-read your old policies	Premiums climb with age, and the medical checks get stricter. Meanwhile the children leave home and the mortgage shrinks, so your life cover can step down. Insurance is something you trim as life changes, not only add to
65+	Travel medical insurance (especially for trips home), and keeping the policies you already have alive	Buying new life insurance at this age is expensive and difficult. First ask yourself who still depends on you for money. The small final-expense policies advertised on TV often pay out poorly for what they cost, so add up the total before you buy. If you own your home, the reverse-mortgage sales pitch is covered in No. 3

Three lines that always apply. ① Insure the sky-falls-down risks first: early death, serious disability, major illness, the house burning. The nice-to-haves come after. ② Shop the same coverage around. The difference often runs to thousands. ③ Buy only what you can explain back in your own words. A product nobody can explain in ten minutes is built that way on purpose.

9. When things go wrong: complaints, denials, insolvency

Problems with an agent or advisor: first send a written complaint to their firm. If that leads nowhere, report them to the provincial regulator (in B.C. that is the Insurance Council of BC; other provinces are in section 4);
A denied claim, or a dispute with the company: first go through the insurer’s own complaint process. The steps and deadlines are written in your policy. Still stuck? Go to OLHI for life and health (a free national ombuds service, meaning an independent complaints office), or GIO for home, auto and business;
The insurer goes under (rare): life policies are backstopped by Assuris, property policies by PACICC. Each has its own limits. That is one more reason not to stack everything into one giant policy;
Keep your paperwork: keep a copy of the application questionnaire, keep claim correspondence in writing, and log the date and the agent ID for every call. In a dispute, these are your evidence.

10. Common myths ↔ facts

Myth: "Insurance grows money tax-free, so the more I buy the faster I save."
Fact: the tax shelter is real. So are the premiums, the built-in fees and the commissions. Until your TFSA and RRSP are full, buying this kind of insurance first is simply the wrong order (section 6).

Myth: "Critical illness insurance pays for any serious disease."
Fact: it pays only for conditions that are named in your contract and match the definition written there. The same illness can be defined differently from policy to policy. Read the definitions pages before you sign, not the count of illnesses covered.

Myth: "My employer insures me, so I never need to buy my own."
Fact: group benefits end when the job ends. Changing jobs, starting a business or retiring all break the cover. And personal insurance bought later is priced on an older, less healthy you.

Myth: "Visiting parents are healthy, so insurance is wasted money."
Fact: visitors pay ER bills in full, and the super visa makes private insurance a condition of the visa. You are not betting on their health. You are betting against a bill of thousands for one night.

Myth: "The agent speaks Chinese and came recommended, so there is no need to check the licence."
Fact: neither language nor friendship is a credential. The check takes 30 seconds, it is free, and it is anonymous (section 4). A legitimate agent will welcome it.

11. The sites to bookmark

These are all official sites, or sites of statutory industry bodies. Each one was verified on 2026-08-27 and 08-29, in two batches. ※ marks sites that block automated checks but open normally in a browser.

Before landing & students (verified 2026-08-29)

IRCC super-visa eligibilityThe official insurance condition Open ↗

B.C. International Student Health Fee$75/month, K-12 and post-secondary alike Open ↗

B.C. MSP eligibilityWho qualifies, and dependants Open ↗

FCAC on home & tenant insuranceWhat tenant insurance covers, in plain words Open ↗

Licence lookups (by province)

Insurance Council of BCB.C. agent licence search Open ↗

Alberta Insurance CouncilAlberta licence search Open ↗

Ontario agent register (FSRA)Search by name; corporate register separate Open ↗

Quebec AMF register ※Blocks automation; fine in a browser Open ↗

CISRO national directoryFind every provincial regulator here Open ↗

CPABC member directoryVerify a B.C. CPA Open ↗

Consumer guides & complaints

FCAC insurance hubThe federal consumer agency’s insurance primer Open ↗

FCAC on life insuranceTerm/whole/universal & cash value, in plain words Open ↗

OLHI (life & health ombuds)Free national complaint service Open ↗

GIO (property ombuds)Auto, home and business disputes Open ↗

Assuris (life insolvency protection)Backstop limits explained Open ↗

PACICC (P&C insolvency protection)Same, for property policies Open ↗

Public insurers

ICBC (B.C. auto)Public basic coverage; also licensing Open ↗

SGI (Sask.) / MPI (Man.)Public auto (SGI here; MPI at mpi.mb.ca) Open ↗

SAAQ (Quebec injury)Public injury, private damage Open ↗

WorkSafeBCClaims and employer duties Open ↗

Super-visa insurance rules (IRCC)The 1-year / approved-insurer wording Open ↗