Compare the best life insurance quotes in Laval for free. It’s that easy.

One of the first things that any life insurance broker or agent will ask you is how much coverage you think you'll need.

That can come as a surprise to a lot of people. They often assume that life insurance is a one-size-fits-all type of product, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Life insurance is actually highly personalized, and it needs to be tailored to each individual’s circumstances. To help determine your insurance needs, you’ll have to consider a number of factors.

Your income: The chief purpose of life insurance is to replace the income that your household will no longer receive due to your passing.

The size of the death benefit you require will depend primarily on how much you earn now—but it is also determined by other factors, such as how many beneficiaries you have and how long they will need support before they become financially independent.

If your children are very young, for example, you will need more coverage than you would if they were only a few years from entering the workforce.

Another influential factor is where you live. In Laval, the median household income at the last federal census was $70,216—which was $8,000 higher than that for the Greater Montreal Area as a whole.

That means that if you live in Laval, you’d likely need to replace more income than the typical life insurance holder elsewhere in Montreal.

The size of your mortgage: If you own a home, chances are that you’re also carrying a mortgage. To guarantee that your loved ones can stay in their home should you pass away, you’ll want to ensure that your death benefit will be large enough to see your mortgage payments through to the end.

The larger your mortgage, the larger the life insurance policy you’ll need. Residents of Laval are comparatively fortunate in that respect since housing costs in Laval are fairly moderate.

The average home price at the beginning of 2019 in Laval was $367,990, which was almost $40,000 less than the average for the entire Montreal region — and less than half the price for a typical home in Toronto or Vancouver.

Your household debt: When you pass away, your beneficiaries can inherit your assets. Unfortunately, their inheritance will be smaller if you die with debt.

That means you have to take into account your overall debt load when calculating life insurance since whatever assets or cash you accumulated will be used to pay off what you owe.

Car loans, lines of credit, outstanding balances on credit cards—they all have to be settled by your estate.

It’s worth noting that the overall level of household debt (including mortgages) in the Montreal region is about 150% of after-tax income, which is below the Canadian average.

Your monthly living expenses: After accounting for your debts and mortgage payments, you also want to make sure that your loved ones can still maintain their standard of living.

Draw up a list of your monthly expenses, which at a minimum will include groceries, transportation, phone and entertainment expenses.

For the Montreal area, that comes to about $1,100 a month per person (excluding housing costs), but you’ll then have to add in variable costs like clothing and emergency cash.

Laval is well-served by Canadian financial institutions. Consequently, residents of Laval enjoy a wide range of choices when it comes to shopping around for life insurance. The most important decision you’ll make when selecting a policy is what type of insurance to buy, with two basic types to choose from.

Term life insurance: This kind of insurance covers the policyholder for a specified duration. It’s ideally suited for people who want to protect beneficiaries, such as young children, during a critical period in life when they would be least able to fend for themselves if their financial provider passed away.

Permanent life insurance: This type of insurance lasts for the policyholder’s entire life. Premiums on this kind of policy are higher than for term life because coverage never expires. Permanent life insurance can also include an investment component that devotes part of the premiums to investments that pay dividends.

There are three subtypes of permanent insurance:

• Whole life: With whole life, you make fixed payments for the lifespan of the policy. Those payments can’t be increased or decreased. Whole life policies have a cash value and that cash is invested by the insurer. This cash value can be paid out at death, or used by you while you’re still alive in a variety of ways, including as extra income during retirement.
• Universal life: Like whole life, the policy has a cash value, but premiums are more flexible. You can pause payments if needed, though the premium is then deducted from the cash value of your policy. Universal life also allows policyholders to have input on how their benefit is invested.
• Term 100: While its name might lead you to believe otherwise, term 100 insurance is actually one kind of permanent insurance policy. When you purchase term 100 life insurance your coverage is permanent, and you must pay premiums until you turn 100. This kind of policy is usually less expensive than universal or whole life insurance but is more expensive than term insurance. Many candidates who purchase term 100 insurance want their coverage to last as long as they are alive, but do not want to pay as much as they normally would with other permanent life insurance products.

The size of the death benefit will determine how high your premiums will be — but it’s not the only factor. Your health and age also play a very large role. That’s because insurers set their premiums based on how long they expect you to live — and the longer you live, the more premiums they will collect.

So what kind of personal factors come into play? First and foremost, your age. The older you are, the closer you are to passing away and triggering a payout—and as a result, insurers will charge you a higher premium.

Gender is also a factor because women tend to live longer than men and have fewer health problems. Then there are all those lifestyle considerations, such as smoking, drinking and being overweight; just as they will reduce your lifespan, they will also increase your premiums.

And finally, there are two key health attributes that will affect premiums: pre-existing medical conditions and your family medical history. If you have heart disease, for example—or if there is a history of it in your family—you represent a greater risk to an insurer of dying early than someone without that health profile. Your premiums will be adjusted accordingly.

Here’s an estimation of how much life insurance could cost you. Apply for a personalized quote to get a better idea of how much you’d pay.