Insurers are positioning individual critical illness insurance as a shield against misfortune, but also as a product capable of compensating clients who remain in good health.

If the insured is not afflicted by a critical illness while covered, they could receive a refund of premiums upon cancellation or expiry of their critical illness insurance policy. If they die without having received critical illness insurance benefits, the beneficiary could receive the sum of the premiums paid by the deceased. All insurers offer at least a refund of premiums upon the insured's death.

In the individual critical illness insurance market, 16 insurers provided product information to InsuranceINTEL, the Insurance Journal Publishing Group’s insurance product information centre. These insurers are Beneva, BMO Insurance, Canada Life, Co-operators Life, Desjardins Insurance, Empire Life, Equitable, Foresters Financial, Humania Assurance, iA Financial Group, ivari, Manulife, Canada Protection Plan, RBC Insurance, Sun Life, and UV Insurance.

On its website, Blue Cross Life states that it offers individual critical illness insurance. However, the insurer did not provide any product information to InsuranceINTEL. Blue Cross Life also says that the coverage offered can reach one million dollars ($1M) and last for a period of 30 years.

Up to $4 million

Desjardins Insurance and Sun Life are making a big splash when it comes to the amount of coverage offered in the event of a critical illness. Policyholders can purchase up to four million dollars ($4M) of protection with their respective products: Health Priorities and Sun Critical Illness Insurance.

Canada Life and iA Financial Group are close behind Sun Life and the Mouvement Desjardins. Each offers up to $3M of coverage with LifeAdvance in the case of Canada Life, and with Transition in the case of iA.

The most common critical illness insurance limit on the market is $2M. This is the case for Beneva, BMO Insurance, Co-operators, Empire Life, Equitable, Foresters Financial, ivari, Manulife, RBC Insurance, and UV Insurance, each offering up to $2M of critical illness coverage.

Humania Assurance and Canada Protection Plan are more modest, limiting critical illness insurance coverage to $100,000. In the case of Humania Assurance, this limit applies to the Insurance Without Medical Exam - CI product.

At Canada Protection Plan, the $100,000 limit can only be reached if the insured has chosen the Cardiac or the Cancer critical illness option. In its ProHealth Cancer product, Humania Assurance limits the coverage amount to $75,000.

Children's Insurance

Three insurers offer individual critical illness insurance products designed exclusively for children. Co-operators offers the Critical Assist IV – Head Start product for children aged 30 days to 17 years. Humania Assurance offers Children360 for children aged 30 days to 15 years. At Canada Life, Child LifeAdvance™ is for children aged 60 days to 17 years.

Canada Life offers the highest critical illness coverage amount for children. Coverage can reach $500,000 on an individual basis. Co-operators follows with child coverage up to $250,000. Humania Assurance comes in last, with a maximum child coverage amount of $50,000.

While not offering a separate product for children, other insurers still cover young children under their general product offerings.

In the child version of its Critical Illness Insurance product, Beneva accepts children from 30 days to 17 years old, up to a coverage amount of $250,000.

At Desjardins Insurance, Health Priorities accepts children from 0 to 25 years old and can insure them up to $1 million. The same applies to Sun Life, where children can be insured up to $1 million with the Sun Critical Illness Insurance product. According to information available in the InsuranceINTEL database, Sun Life considers insureds aged 30 days to 17 years to be children.

Prepared by InsuranceINTEL for the Insurance Portal, the following table also provides details on premium and coverage options, as well as conversion options. Several insurers offer policyholders the option to convert their short-term policy, for example, a 10-year (T10) or 20-year (T20) term policy, into a longer-term policy. The most commonly offered long-term products are the T75 and T100.

Group coverage

Group health insurance does not offer premium refunds. However, employers who offer this coverage in their companies’ group plan gain points with their employees. Employees can access basic critical illness insurance coverage at a reduced price.

Eleven insurers provided information to InsuranceINTEL on at least one group critical illness insurance product. This group includes Assumption Life, Beneva, Canada Life, Co-operators Life, Blue Cross Life, Desjardins Insurance, Empire Life, Equitable, iA Financial Group, Manulife, and Sun Life, each offering one product. Desjardins Insurance, Empire Life, and iA Financial Group each offer two.

Coverage amounts for group critical illness insurance are more limited than for individual critical illness insurance. Beneva and Desjardins Insurance offer the highest coverage amounts, at $600,000 and $500,000 respectively.

At the other end of the spectrum, Sun Life limits its critical illness coverage to $200,000, and Blue Cross sets the limit at $100,000. All other insurers offer maximum group critical illness coverage of $250,000.

As the following table, prepared by InsuranceINTEL, shows, maximum coverage amounts are sometimes reached when the insured combines basic group coverage with optional insurance. Similar to individual insurance, optional insurance generally requires the insured to provide proof of health at the time of enrollment to obtain higher coverage.