On August 26, 2026, Assumption Life stopped selling its Critical Protection critical illness insurance product, launching a new one—simply named Critical Illness Insurance —the very next day.
An article regarding critical illness insurance product features, published on the Insurance Portal on August 13, 2026, did not include Assumption Life’s former product in the comparison chart of individual products.
At the time the article was written, the insurer had already removed data for its old product from InsuranceINTEL but had not yet submitted data for the new one. InsuranceINTEL is the product information centre managed by the Insurance Journal Publishing Group.
The insurer pointed out its absence from the August 13 comparison chart and provided an opportunity to interview two executives who played key roles in designing the new product, which launched on August 27.
Targeting the middle class
The interview regarding the new product’s details took place on September 10. Insurance Portal conducted the interview with two Assumption Life executives: Marie-Claude Thibodeau, Vice President, Offer Management and Client Experience, and Youssef Lahlou, National Associate, Vice President, Individual Insurance and Investments.
Rather than simply dusting off its previous product, Assumption Life chose to start fresh. "We didn’t want to simply update our existing product. We wanted to start fresh, given how much things have evolved since our initial version," explained Thibodeau. Critical Protection was launched in 2012.
Lahlou discussed the complete overhaul of the product lineup—a process that hadn't yet extended to critical illness insurance until now. "We worked on redesigning most of our products to meet the needs of the family market, including term life insurance—a segment where we already had a strong presence," Lahlou explained.
Bundled offering
We had a critical illness insurance product that wasn’t really competitive. – Youssef Lahlou
Youssef Lahlou highlights a trend among advisors that shaped the new product's design. "Advisors want to sell term life insurance bundled with critical illness insurance," Lahlou reveals.
He recounts discussions with managing general agents and advisors active in the family market. They describe a growing trend known as "bundling"—the practice of attaching additional coverages to a basic life insurance policy. Critical illness insurance is now being added alongside coverages such as disability and mortgage insurance, Lahlou notes.
He believes financial insecurity may be fueling this trend and laments the fact that many clients lack emergency funds. "Some Canadian families can be financially vulnerable. While life insurance certainly protects the family, we are seeing increasing interest in living benefit products—specifically critical illness insurance," he adds.
However, he admits that advisors were shying away from Assumption Life’s previous critical illness insurance product. "We had a critical illness insurance product that wasn’t really competitive," he says.
Up-to-date definitions: a competitive advantage
For her part, Marie-Claude Thibodeau notes that advisors are comparing critical illness insurance products against one another more than ever. By switching to a new product, Assumption Life took the opportunity to adopt the latest set of benchmark definitions for critical illnesses, she explains.
It is a "version that reflects developments in the medical field," Thibodeau says. Among these developments, she cited health technologies, preventive disease detection, and pharmacology. She says the latest definitions make it easier for advisors to compare products.
Thibodeau maintains that not all insurers have adopted the most recent definitions. A committee from the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) developed these benchmark definitions in late 2024. The CLHIA had published an initial version of the benchmark definitions in 2008. It repeated the process in 2013 and again in 2018. In its 2018 document, the CLHIA stated that it periodically reviews and updates definitions to reflect medical advancements and the evolution of the products offered by its members.
Three services
Assumption Life’s new critical illness insurance product provides free access to the health support services of Dialogue, a digital solutions provider acquired by Sun Life in 2023.
Both Sun Life and UV Insurance also offer the Dialogue service in their critical illness products.
"The reality today is that it is difficult to see a specialist, get a second medical opinion, or access psychological support for oneself and one’s family," explains Lahlou. He underlines that Assumption Life’s critical illness policyholder’s parents and parents-in-law can also access the service, in addition to immediate family .
According to research conducted via InsuranceINTEL, offering access to health service providers is common in the market; frequently seen providers include Teladoc Health Canada (associated with products from BMO Insurance, Canada Life, Foresters Financial, and RBC Insurance) and Best Doctors (Co-operators Life and its subsidiary CUMIS Life, as well as Humania Assurance). Among others, Beneva offers TELUS Health services; Equitable Life offers Cloud DX; Empire Life offers MedExtra; iA Financial Group offers MediGuide; ivari offers Maple; and Manulife offers WorldCare.
Taking it a step further
With their former product, Critical Protection, policyholders could purchase up to $100,000 in critical illness insurance coverage. The new product raises the bar to $2 million, allowing the insurer to align with the market average, as this limit is the most common in the industry (also offered by BMO Insurance, Beneva, Co-operators Life and its subsidiary CUMIS Life, Foresters Financial, ivari, Equitable Life, Manulife, and UV Insurance). iA Financial Group and RBC Insurance each offer a maximum coverage of $3 million. Canada Life, Desjardins Insurance, and Sun Life offer coverage up to $4 million.
Assumption Life surpasses Humania Assurance, whose term critical illness product limits coverage to $1 million.
For its part, Canada Protection Plan limits its critical illness coverage amount to $100,000. A unique case, this product protects the insured against only one of two categories of illness, as the name implies: Cardiac Protect OR Cancer Protect. Furthermore, Cardiac Protect and Cancer Protect are available only via simplified issue.
Immediate sales
Finally, Thibodeau and Lahlou highlighted the flexibility of the two return-of-premium-at-maturity riders for the new product (T75 and T75 payable over 20 years). Known as Flexible Return of Premium Riders, one matures after 15 years and the other at age 65. Only one of the two can be purchased for a given insured person; a return-of-premium-on-death rider can also be purchased for any policy term. "Immediately after the product launch, we saw several sales of the T75 with the 15-year return-of-premium option," reveals Lahlou.
Produced by InsuranceINTEL, the following comparison chart uses the same criteria employed to create the charts presented by the Insurance Portal on August 13. It includes additional information regarding Assumption Life’s Critical Illness Insurance.
