Scantlebury Wealth Management

If you talk to most life-licensed financial professionals, they will always say that the best time to buy life insurance is today. The reason for that is simple: we all have a story of someone who waited too long. While waiting, that person could have been diagnosed with a chronic sickness or ailment like arthritis, fibromyalgia or diabetes. That person could have been diagnosed with something more life threatening like cancer, heart attack or stroke; or they could have waited too long and died. During my time in the industry, I have come across all of these circumstances and more.  However, in the next two years, three additional reasons to buy Life Insurance have cropped up:  COVID, Interest Rates and likely changes in Tax Policy. So let’s start with COVID. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (a part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the life expectancy of an average American at birth in 2020 was 77.8 yrs. In 2019, the number was 78....

Quite recently, I was asked a simple question: I have my Travel Insurance Policy on my credit card,  why should I buy a separate policy? My gut reaction was simple: never depend on your credit card insurance and never buy it from a bank. With twenty years of employment history between various  financial and financial education firms, my reaction is you should try to go to the correct professional  to get your financial service.  As a guy who is licensed to sell Life and Accident Sickness Insurance, I thought I knew what was  best. After all, I have sold these policies for a few years and I had a sense of them. So, of course, my  gut said “every individual should buy their own Travel Insurance and buy it from an independent Insurance Advisor; and never walk into a retail bank branch to do the same. Yet, my mind said  something else: “are you sure?”. Accordingly, I did research and I was surprised.  I was surprised by the range and variability of th...

In April, Gold’s Gym proactively closed 30 company-owned gyms; and by May, they declared bankruptcy. In making that decision, it meant that they separated themselves from “nearly 700 gyms around the world.” J.Crew joined them by  filling for Chapter 11 protection in early May.  Since then retailers have either gone bankrupt or filed for Chapter 11. In the US, Neiman Marcus, J.C. Penney, Tuesday Morning, PQ New York, Lucky Brand, Brooks Brothers and Sur La Table. In Canada, David’s Tea, SAIL Outdoors Inc, Henry's and Aldo did the same.  The 85 year old vitamin company called GNC saw a 30% drop in their store sales; while 24 Hour Fitness couldn’t provide their chief product - a place to exercise. Both filed for bankruptcy in June.  While, in the same month, CEC Entertainment - a company which owns 550 Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza locations - after COVID lockdowns found itself doing an oxymoronic and/or paradoxical thing: on one day, they both reopened 266 venu...

When I gained my Life Insurance Licence, I had one belief: there is very little difference between life insurance companies. After all, don’t all life insurance companies provide a product which pays out at death? Isn’t that all one needs to know about life insurance? I quickly learned that the answer to those questions is not that simple. For example, all the big Canadian Banks partner with the largest Canadian Insurance companies to provide creditor insurance products in their retail bank branches. At this point, Canada Life Assurance Company works with ScotiaBank, TD Canada Trust, CIBC, & RBC; while SunLife Financial works with BMO. Manufacturers Life ensures that First National has a creditor plan.  However, there is a problem with this type of life and/or health insurance: there is no guaranteed payout. Now, for many people, this might seem odd; however, it is the truth. Because Canadian Banks cannot sell individual life or health insurance policies in their bank branches,...

When buying a house, many people have a list of professionals that they go and see. They find a realtor and a real estate lawyer. They find a mortgage broker or a banker to secure the mortgage. From that point, there is a search for a home inspector, a property insurer and sometimes a designer or architect. Buying a house is an important and time consuming endeavour. In all of that confusion, it is understandable that many new homeowners forget to phone their life insurance agent. For when their banking officer or mortgage broker asks them one question - "Would you like to have mortgage life insurance?" – they often say yes. It is another box ticked and something else has been removed from their plate. However, with over ten years in the financial industry, I know that that decision can be a costly one. I first read about the costs of Creditor Insurance or bank-provided Mortgage Life Insurance from Bob Aaron. He is a Toronto area lawyer. In an article in the Toronto Star, dat...

I was recently asked a question that bothered me: Why should a married couple who have no children acquire a life insurance policy? The question shook me because I have more than a decade in the financial industry, and more than thirty years of personal experience; so a number of sad stories came to mind. One particular story was stronger than the rest though.  The couple were acquaintances of mine and they had just gotten married. They were in their twenties and in reasonably good shape. The husband was on a business trip and died due to natural causes.  Now I am the first to admit that this is an unusual circumstance. When the gentlemen passed, more than a decade ago, most of us would say that he could be expected to see his 80th birthday. Today, a similar Canadian who is male and twenty years of age could be expected to live to his 82nd year. So why would he need a policy? Well because all of us are different and we are not just averages. Whether, we think we are going to l...

During my career, I have been asked a simple question repeatedly: why should a twenty year old buy life insurance?  In many ways, this is the easiest and hardest financial planning question to answer. For the answer to the question lies in statistics, expectations, hopes and the way in which we wish to live our lives. Statistically, it is quite clear that most people in the Western World will not die tomorrow. The Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Children and Their Families noted that while those between the age of 0 and 19 made up 29 percent of the population in 1999, they only made up 2% of all deaths.  In fact, if you look at statistics from Canada, the US and the UK, you see a remarkably similar trend. From birth to the pre-teen years, the likelihood of death drops off dramatically. Or put differently, based on the StatsCanada data from 2014-2018, from birth to age 1, 4.5 Canadian babies out of 1,000 will die. However...