By city

Infinite Banking in Guelph

Guelph was laid out on a plan in 1827 and built in limestone quarried nearby, and it has one of the steadiest employment pictures in Ontario. Steady is exactly what this strategy needs, which makes the honest question here a different one.

A city that was designed before it was built

Guelph was laid out in 1827 by John Galt on a deliberate plan, with streets radiating from a point above the Speed River, and much of the old core was built in limestone quarried close by. That stone is still what the downtown looks like. The Speed and Eramosa rivers meet here, the Royal City Park and the trail system follow the water, and the Church of Our Lady Immaculate stands on the hill the original plan pointed at.

It is worth naming because Guelph is a rare thing: a city that decided its shape first and then grew into it. That is the same order this strategy requires, and getting the order wrong is the commonest way people are hurt by it.

Steadiness is the local advantage, and it is real

The University of Guelph, the hospital, food science and agri-food research, advanced manufacturing and a substantial public sector give this city an unusually stable employment picture. Guelph has consistently had one of the lower unemployment rates among Ontario cities.

That matters more than it might seem. This strategy asks for premiums maintained without interruption for decades, and a household that can forecast its income five years out has an advantage a commission-based or seasonal household does not. Cash surrender value stays below cumulative premiums for many years and commonly for more than a decade, so the ability to hold steady through that period is not a minor detail. It is the whole thing.

Which makes the honest question harder, not easier

Here is the part a Guelph reader deserves. When employment is steady, a workplace pension is common, and housing is more manageable than the Greater Toronto Area, the strategy becomes easier to sustain, and simultaneously less obviously necessary.

If you hold a defined benefit pension, and many here do, half the usual argument does not apply: that plan already provides an income that does not run out and does not depend on markets. What remains is access to capital during your working life, because a pension is not collateral, and the survivor question, which depends on reading your own plan rather than accepting a general answer.

So you should be able to name what the capital would actually be for: a child's education, a rental property, buying into a business, a transfer to the next generation. If you cannot name it, the honest answer is no. A good practitioner will say so rather than find you a reason, and Chapter 8 of the book exists to help you rule this out as readily as rule it in.

Research, contract work and the assumption to check

A university and research city carries a large population on contract, on grant funding or in spin-off companies. Those readers may hold no pension at all, or a defined contribution plan, which promises no amount and accumulates a balance that depends on markets and can run out. If that is what you have, the retirement argument does not weaken as described above, and you are closer to a self-employed position than a pensioned one. Read your own statement rather than assuming which you hold; it is the single question that changes the answer most, and it takes two minutes.

If your income is also uneven, size the base premium against your worst plausible year and put strong-year capacity into paid-up additions rather than a higher base premium. In most contracts the base premium is the binding obligation and additional deposits are the flexible part.

Ontario rules and where it does not fit

Insurance in Ontario is supervised by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario, and a professional here holds the licence of a Life and Accident & Sickness Insurance Agent. Under the Financial Professionals Title Protection Act nobody may use the title Financial Planner or Financial Advisor without an approved credential, and a life insurance licence alone qualifies for neither. Verify the licence in the public register and ask how the person is paid.

A household early in a mortgage, without an emergency reserve, or carrying high-interest consumer debt should deal with those first. Nothing on this page is advice. No assessment has been made of anyone reading it, and the author is not a neutral party: he is licensed to sell the contracts this strategy uses and is paid a commission when one is placed. If you have a pension, bring your statements. The answer depends on them more than on anything written here.