Since 2010, approximately 100,000 fewer individual life insurance policies have been sold annually in Canada. Last year, the life insurance industry sold 635,067 individual life insurance policies, compared to 733,941 in 2010. These observations are based on a dataset prepared by LIMRA exclusively for the Insurance Portal.
The penetration rate of individual life insurance is suffering as a result. Canada had 34 million inhabitants in 2010; It now numbers nearly 42 million, according to a Statistics Canada estimate for the third quarter of 2025. In 2010, the number of individual life insurance policies sold per 1,000 inhabitants in Canada reached 21.7. It was only 15.3 in 2024.
Industry leaders are concerned. Cathy Hiscott, President and CEO of the managing general agency PPI, denounced the cumbersome life insurance sales process during a panel discussion at the Canada Sales Congress on September 30, 2025, an event organized annually by the Insurance Journal Publishing Group. She believes that excessive regulatory procedures and compliance requirements are hindering sales.
Hiscott presented LIMRA statistics during the panel discussion, indicating that 55% of millennials are interested in life insurance that provides a guaranteed retirement income. For Generation Z, this figure is 50%. Millennials are defined as those born between 1981 and 1996, while Generation Z refers to those born between 1997 and 2012.
From PC to Web
Faced with these findings, web-based solutions are emerging in the industry. Philippe Cleary, Vice-President, Underwriting, New Business and Claims, Individual Insurance, Savings and Retirement, of iA Financial Group, is betting on EVO Insurance on the Web, a digital sales platform.
The platform can now approve applications at the point of sale in 53% of cases, revealed Cleary in the article on life insurers' offerings entitled Insuring more people faster, published in the December 2025 issue of the Insurance Journal. Since October 17, advisors have been required to use the web platform exclusively.
Cleary added that at the end of the five-week testing period preceding the launch of EVO Insurance on the Web, 70% of applications sent to iA Financial Group already came from the new platform. He noted that the new platform is accessible on tablets and smartphones. "Before, advisors had to use a PC, download EVO, and download the updates," explained Mr. Cleary.
27% of the industry's policies
Cleary wants to raise the instant issuance rate from 53% to 60% by next year, and aims for 80% by 2030. "We want to make it easier for advisors to achieve the goal of protecting more Canadians."
Cleary explains that certain factors can prevent the automatic issuance inherent in accelerated underwriting. These include certain medical conditions of the insured or their age. iA Financial Group sets the age limit at 60 for accelerated underwriting.
To achieve this ambition, iA Financial Group is working to revise its risk selection requirements. “We want to reduce the amount of external information requested later to increase the automation rate,” reveals Cleary.
The insurer revamped its underwriting rules engine in 2024 and 2025. It believes the new platform will allow it to go even further. “With the technology we had previously, we were somewhat limited to around 50% to 53%,” says Cleary. He maintains that this automation rate is already the highest in the industry.
iA Financial Group issues 27% of new life insurance policies in Canada, year after year.
– Philippe Cleary
When questioned in an interview about the 100,000 policy gap per year in Canada, Philippe Cleary expressed concern and insisted that the insurer is holding its own in this regard. “iA Financial Group issues 27% of new life insurance policies in Canada, year after year. We want to continue to cover a greater number of Canadians,” he stated, citing a statistic from LIMRA.
Smaller players join forces
Large insurers are not the only ones refining their accelerated underwriting offerings. Emma, a digital individual life insurance distributor, recently expanded its accelerated underwriting program to include individuals whose health is not perfect but who are in good health, as reported by the Insurance Portal on October 23. Emma set the limit at $750,000 for these clients.
In an interview with the Insurance Portal, Emma's President and CEO, Félix Deschâtelets, explained why he was able to convince Humania Assurance to help him build a underwriting engine that could accept more people on an accelerated underwrting basis. Humania Assurance underwrites the risk for Emma's in-house products, including short-term and term 100 life insurance (T-100).
If you resist change, don't be surprised if others innovate faster than you.
– Félix Deschâtelets
“We’ve noticed in the industry, especially in large corporations, that people tend to become comfortable relatively quickly. We’ve seen this with several insurers,” says Deschâtelets. He says he encountered several insurers who were closed to his initiative. “The bigger they are, the more they resist…They say, ‘It’s been like this for 20 years, it’s not going to change,’” says Deschâtelets. “If you resist change, don’t be surprised if there are people who innovate faster than you.”
In contrast, Humania Assurance “is one of those companies whose status quo can be challenged: they respond favorably to this because they want to create and do things differently,” he adds. Emma was thus able to integrate the rules contained in Humania Assurance’s underwriting guides into its technology so that they would run automatically.
Emma has gained in speed as a result. “Our new technology will be more efficient not only for filtering risks and making decisions, but will also allow us to launch new products much faster. The first version of our technology allowed us to launch a product in seven to eight months. Now, we can do it in two weeks. Making changes will take half a day,” reveals Deschâtelets.
Life before Living Benefits
In terms of the insurance gap, living benefits products appear to be the poor relations in a recent RBC Insurance survey, as reported in the special feature on life insurers’ offerings in the December issue of the Insurance Journal.
The RBC Insurance survey reveals that only 10% of Canadians have disability insurance, and 9% have critical illness insurance.
RBC Insurance Vice-President Adam Mamdani emphasized the importance of advisors in helping people see living benefits products as protection, not an expense. The situation depicted by the survey puts individual life insurance in a better position: 39% of respondents said they have it.
In an interview with the Insurance Portal, conducted in conjunction with a feature on life insurers' offerings, Mamdani acknowledged that advisors are very comfortable discussing life insurance. According to him, they are less comfortable with products such as disability insurance: "It is a more technical and complex product. We believe that not enough advisors are talking about disability insurance with their clients."
There's not enough new advisors joining the industry
– Adam Mamdani
He also observed that many Canadians believe they are already protected by their group plan or benefits from other sources.
How can this gap be explained? “Number one, there's not enough new advisors joining the industry,” says Adam Mamdani.
Second, he says, “there has been more of a focus on high net worth and ultra high net worth clients. And so, less policy but more premium sold, particularly in participating whole life insurance.”
Third, tax and estate planning strategies, so important to permanent life insurance, take time to implement, Mamdani points out. “Few advisors serve the mass market. Many focus instead on entrepreneurs, business owners, and high-net-worth individuals,” he says.
Mamdani says it’s important to remind the public that the life insurance advisor profession is honorable. “It’s a profession that allows you to earn a good living, help people, and make a difference in their lives. We need more people to join this amazing industry,” says Mamdani who began his career as an advisor 17 years ago.
This article is a Magazine Supplement of the December 2025 issue of the Insurance Journal.
