You read the Globe to be on top of all the financial news in Canada, and they sure do a good job in keeping us up to date. This short article is to address a small but very important topic of life insurance. Statistics show that even though Canadians are buying more life insurance (35% increase in Whole Life Insurance and an 8% increase in term insurance sales in 2010, according to LIMRA ).
Even though these numbers are on the increase, I find that most Canadians still have either the wrong kind of life insurance, or are inadequately insured.

If you read the Globe....

then you know that access to the most current information is key, whether it comes to investing your hard earned money, finding the best savings vehicles, and yes, finding the best life insurance quotes.

Use our Instant Life Insurance Calculator to get a comparison of 25+ Canadian insurers and their prices...

Shopping for a good insurance policy, whether it's term insurance, or Whole life or Universal life is easy now, you can do it all online, without having an agent come over like in the olden days. This makes it so much more convenient for you, and most importantly, you will have access to the same information (or more), than your insurance agent.

Sadly, most insurance agents don't even shop for you, most of the time, they just use the company that they work for, and very often that is not the best policy or price for you.

You don't have to pay too much, not while our website is online, and it's open 24/7, and anyone can come and use our calculator for free and check their insurance rates.

Term insurance quotes for globe and mail readers

Term insurance rates are now cheaper then they ever were, and if you haven't looked and shopped in the last 5 years, you could be overpaying. Quite often, a term policy is less expensive today then it was 5 or 10 years ago.

The other thing I wanted to mention is, .... never ever ever accept the renewal rates that your life insurance company offers you at renewal. Most of the time, those rates are hyper inflated, and you can get a much better price by re shopping (you do need to be in decent health for this to work).

So there you have it, there is no reason for even one globe reader to be overpaying for life insurance.

This program is designed, and has been very successful in drastically reducing the premiums and increasing coverage at the same time.

You see, most people have too many individual policies, but too little coverage.

Why and how does that happen?

Well, here's how... let's see if some of these situation ever happened to you...

• for some of us it starts as early as when we are born, and a parent or grandparent buys a small life insurance policy for you. They pay the premiums on our behalf, but in some cases, when we get older, those premiums are transferred to us to pay for it.
• At some point you will have met with a "Life Insurance Agent", who may have likely been a friend of a friend or family member. To help them out in their new carrier, you end up buying a policy from him/her, that you didn't really need or want, and in many cases it is a "high commission" but "low benefit to you" policy.
• Eventually, we buy a policy, that we actually need, usually, after we get married or have children. Often, those are good policies, but because term insurance rates have been coming down over the past 20 years, very often you can get the same policy for less, if you shop the market properly.
• Many people end up buying the mortgage insurance from your lender or bank after applying for a mortgage or loan. It's hard to say "no" sometimes to the nice banker, but research has shown that those kind of policies are not as good as and much more expensive, than buying individual term insurance. You can read more about the pros and cons of mortgage insurance here.
• Sometimes other opportunities come up to buy insurance, which is disguised as something else, such as "funeral plans" and "accidental plans", and insurance offers from places such as Canadian Tire, Costco, Sears, Zellers, Visa, Master Card, and on and on. It seems as everyone and their donkey is selling life insurance these days.

Bottom line, most people could save a lot of money every month, if they took a few minutes, and listed all their insurance policies, and added up the total amount of coverage, and the total amount of premiums that they are paying.

If this is the first time that you are doing this, you will be shocked at how much you are spending in "policy fees" and extra charges that are totally redundant.

By filling out the short questionnaire on the next page, you will instantly see how much money you can save.

Don't Leave Debt Behind: Flex Options and Flex Term

Debt is a part of life. Whether it is to purchase a house, a car or to finish post-secondary education.

More than often, the plan is simply to make payments until your loans are paid in full. But if you are unable to make your payments due to disability or premature death?

This is where Flex Options and Flex Term come into play. These two great management tools ensure that you and your love ones will have the necessary funds to pay off your debt in these unfortunate circumstances.

These two products offers the practicality of term life insurance with the option of adding disability insurance, all under one policy. Flex Options and Flex Term are all about choice.

• Select between level and decreasing term insurance.
• Choice from a 15, 20 and 25-year duration.
• Decide whether you'd like your disability benefit to be based on your mortgage payments or on your level of income.
• Best of all, no medical exams are required for coverage amounts up to $250,000.

Ask your adviser about the advantages of a personal life insurance and how it differs from competing products.

If you are between the age of 18 and 65 and don't want to leave debt behind, take time to discuss it with your adviser.

A headstart for you child's future, ParPlus Jr.

We all want the best for our kids. Good health and education. Happiness and financial security. These are all the things we wish for them.

Although we can not always guarantee these things,  we can better prepare our children for the road ahead by putting a life insurance policy in place for you child today. You will help them secure their financial security as an adult.

Parplus Jr. is a participating permanent life for kids age 0 to 17. Premiums are payable for 20 years but the insurance protection is for life. In other words, regardless of future health problems the insurance protection remains.

Parplus Jr. offers more than just an insurance. As a participating life insurance, Parplus Jr. pays annual dividends. How you use that money is up to you. You can use your dividends to increase your cash flow, reduce your cost or receive a larger payout. At the time of your choosing, you can transfer ownership to your adult child without tax consequences.

Applying for Parplus Jr. is simple. No medical exams required for amounts up to $250,000.

Let your children focus on their dreams and soar towards their goals as you lay a financial safety net for them.

Get Mortgage insurance that protects you, and your loved ones at the best price, not mortgage life insurance sold by your bank at an exorbitant markup for THEIR profit, and protection!

The mortgage Insurance solution that your lender will try to sell you may not be the ideal solution for you. Insurance should be designed to support your loved ones. However, unless you consider your bank a "loved one", you might want to consider another option.

An individually owned term insurance plan whether it's T10, T20 or 30 year term, offers you better guarantees, a cheaper price and most importantly, the coverage does not decrease with every mortgage payment you make, as it does at the bank.

Best of all, in a Mortgage Term Insurance Policyyou can designate who you want as beneficiary, and they will get 100% of the Mortgage Insurance money, and they can decide how to use it. Your beneficiaries will be able to pay off the mortgage and keep the difference.

Private Mortgage Insurance vs Bank Mortgage Insurance

For more details on the major differences between Mortgage Insurance at the bank vs individually owned term insurance , click here.

Watch the short video segment on CBC Marketplace and see how bad mortgage insurance from the bank can really be!

If all you need is Life Insurance Quotes, you can get instant quotes on our home page, and if you would like straight term insurance quotes, then perhaps our term life insurance page would be better suited. In case that you would like to see some more permanet insurance, such as Whole Life Insurance Quotes then the whole life insurance page would be more appropriate.

Many people these days are either too busy or just plain don't want to bother with doing an Insurance medical. Having to go to a doctor, or even having the nurse come to you house for an hour is just not a lot of fun, and let's face it, who wants to be poked by some stranger and give blood?

Well, there are some Insurance companies now, that will offer you life insurance without a medical, without giving a blood sample, and even without seeing anyone at all. In most cases you will need to answer some health questions over the phone, depending on the amount of insurance you want to buy.

The companies to consider are:

• Unity Life EZ term, you can buy up to 250,000 of 10 year term insurance buy just answering 9 questions over the phone or online. The problem is, that if you answer any one of the questions with a "YES", you automatically don't qualify.
• CPP (Canada Protection Plan), they have many different options, all the way from first day coverage (up to 150,000), to deferred coverage (this is the only policy that I know of where you can buy term insurance with a 2 year waiting period), and also they offer Whole Life, all non-medical.
• Western Life, up to 250,000 without seeing anyone
• Assumption Life

If you have a health condition that you think may prevent you from being insured (maybe you have been declined already), you most definitely need to talk to us. There are a lot of specialty products out there, but getting the right one for you is key, because I see a lot of people buy the wrong policy, here are some examples:

• One 60 year old man with Diabetes applied for a policy that required a medical. After a 2 months evaluation, he was rated 250% and the premium was just out of reach for him so he declined the offer. Had he talked to us first, we would have recommended a policy with CPP, who actually can insure a diabetic that is not on insulin without a medical exam, and no waiting period.
• Another lady I spoke to did the opposite, she thought that she couldn't get insurance because of her high blood pressure and high cholesterol, so she bought one of those guaranteed issue plans on TV, which was extremely expensive, and she was not covered for the first two years. What we did is applied at a couple of companies for her after (yes, she did need a medical for that), but one of the Insurers gave her a regular health rate because all her medical problems were well controlled with meds, and she saved a lot of money, and had coverage starting right away (no waiting period).

So you see, because of so many variables, knowledge and experience is key, and we have it, so take advantage of it!

There is an art to getting the best No Medical Life Insurance, and very few Life Insurance Agents have perfected that.

We believe that with over 18 years of experience in Shopping for Life Insurance, we have developed the knowledge, wisdom and relationships with many great Canadian Life Insurance Companies, to be able to get YOU the absolutely BEST rate, medical or non medical life insurance, no matter what your situation or health condition is.

Among the numerous health-insurance companies in the UK, AXA PPP healthcare happens to be among the elite, both in terms of size and expertise. The company has been catering to health insurance needs of people from various sections of society, for about 70 years now and also paid out a whopping 793 million pounds in benefits in 2009. Insurance may be evolving but AXA PPP insurance is still equated with trust and quality, as always.

This company gives you access to over 250 hospitals and 400 diagnostic facilities, all of which form a part of the AXA network because of the quality they provide. After all health insurance is only one part of AXA Groups commitment for excellence. AXA Group has over 50 million customers worldwide (both business and individual) who get nothing but the best from over 110,000 employees working in 50 countries where AXA is present.

And this drive for excellence is what you will fail to see in most health insurance companies. Which other insurance giant can claim to have a ISO 14001 accredited Environmental Management System which takes care to limit the carbon footprint of the company and many other efforts of preserving nature.

And isn't it true that if the planet was greener today, we would be a lot healthier as well? That is why AXA PPP insurance wants to do more than just provide customers with health cover for self and family.

When it comes to health insurance plans, AXA PPP has great options for every budget and every need. The basic private medical insurance plan provides you with a financial safety net should the need arise for you or your dependants to get hospitalized. You also get access to:

A Dedicated Nurse helpline which provides telephonic medical support for cancer patients and their families.

Health at Hand, another telephonic helpline which offers any sort of medical/clinical advice 24 hours a day.

We're Desjardins Financial Security – Desjardins Group's life and health insurance subsidiary. Every day, over 5 million Canadians count on us to help ensure their financial security. How do we achieve this? By offering innovative life and health insurance and retirement savings solutions! Looking for coverage for yourself or your business? We've got what it takes!

Desjardins Financial Security also means:*

3,653 employees
$116.5 million in taxes and income tax
$2.4 billion in benefits paid to insureds
$16.5 billion worth of Canadian investments
Nearly $3.3 million worth of contributions to the community
8.197 representatives and brokers
More than 100 years of experience

*as at December 31, 2011

Our promise

We share Desjardins Group's cooperative values. That's why at Desjardins Financial Security, people come first. We're always there for you, to help in any way we can. We focus on you, so we can suggest the right insurance and savings solutions for your specific needs
We're a dynamic company

The company, which pioneered the concept of bancassurance in this country, now ranks fifth among life and health insurers in Canada and first in Quebec in terms of written premiums.
Our distribution networks

To accommodate the preferences of our clientele, we make our products and services available to individuals, groups and businesses through a diverse range of distribution channels, including:

Financial centres of Desjardins Financial Security, Independent Network and Desjardins Financial Security Investments Inc. (in Canada, outside Quebec)
Financial centres of SFL and SFL Investments (in Quebec)
Desjardins caisses (more than 270 dedicated financial security advisors)
Desjardins Business Centres
Desjardins Credit Union branches
Directinsurance, either over the Internet or through the Company’s call centre services

We also maintain business relationships with many group plan representatives, consulting actuaries, as well as brokers and general agents (MGAs) across Canada.
Our places of business

In addition to our head office in Lévis, we have offices in several other cities coast to coast, including Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Québec, Halifax and St. John’s.