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Infinite Banking in Niagara Falls

Every presentation of this strategy assumes the policy will be issued. It is an application, not a purchase, and knowing what the insurer examines changes how you should approach it.

The city at the edge

Niagara Falls runs along the gorge from the Horseshoe to Queenston, with Clifton Hill above the falls, the Rainbow Bridge to New York, and the parkway that Frederick Law Olmsted argued for. The hydro history is here in the old Toronto Power and Rankine stations. The working economy is tourism, hospitality and the casinos, which means a great deal of income is seasonal, hourly, or partly in tips.

That matters for this page, because both halves of an application, the medical and the financial, land differently on a household whose income is not a salary.

Applying is not buying

This is the page's central point. An insurer decides whether to issue, at what price, and on what terms. A presentation that treats acceptance as a formality has skipped the step where the answer might be no.

Medical underwriting. Expect a detailed health questionnaire, and for most amounts a paramedical visit: height, weight, blood pressure, blood and urine samples. The insurer will ask for consent to obtain records from your doctor and to check the industry information exchange that Canadian insurers share. An application can be issued as applied for, issued rated at a higher premium, issued with an exclusion, postponed, or declined.

Financial underwriting, which people do not expect. An insurer will not issue an unlimited amount: the coverage has to bear a sensible relationship to the loss a death would cause, usually assessed as a multiple of income, and for large amounts you will be asked to document that income. For a household with tips or seasonal work, the figure the insurer accepts is the figure you have reported and can evidence, not the figure you actually earn. That is worth knowing before you apply rather than after.

Three things that follow

Answer completely. A material misstatement lets the insurer contest a claim, and in Ontario the contestability window is generally two years from issue or reinstatement, with no time limit where fraud is involved. The person who bears that is your family. A practitioner who suggests softening an answer is manufacturing the problem the policy was meant to solve.

Apply while you are healthy. The likelihood of a rating or a decline rises with age and with diagnosis. Never build a plan that depends on a policy being accepted before it has been accepted, and never cancel existing coverage until the new contract is issued and in force.

Ask about a waiver of premium benefit at the same time. It generally must be added at issue and cannot be added later, which makes the application the only moment it is available.

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. Verify the licence in the public register and ask how the person is paid.

Seasonal and tipped income is the profile this strategy handles worst. Size any base premium against the off-season, not the summer, and put strong-month capacity into paid-up additions. Cash surrender value stays below cumulative premiums for many years, commonly more than a decade, so an early exit is a loss. Dividends are not guaranteed: they are declared annually by the insurer's board based on the participating account's experience, and the scale can be revised downward.

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. Bring three years of returns rather than a good season.