Canada Protection Plan streamlines applications, introduces CI products

Toronto-based Canada Protection Plan, provider of simplified no-medical insurance, introduced a new feature to its application process that aims to deliver greater efficiency to advisors and clients.

Fastest A-Z, available to advisors through the firm’s online process, allows for streamlined applications for those who are hard to insure.

The feature leverages client data provided in the application process so that fewer questions can be asked. For example, when a client answers “no” to a specific disease in the medical history portion of the application, they’ll no longer be asked additional questions about that condition.

“We’re able to offer someone a half-million dollars of insurance through nine declarations and five medical questions,” said Michael Aziz, co-president at Canada Protection Plan, referring to the minimum number of questions possible for the firm’s best no-medical coverage. That compares to almost 40 questions previously.

“We shortened the process to maybe 15 minutes,” he said.

The launch was delayed by about a week as the pandemic began, he said, so that the firm could prioritize offering e-policies across its entire product lineup — a project that had already been in the works. All Canada Protection Plan insurance products, for both healthier clients and those hard to ensure, can now be accessed online, from application to policy delivery.

“We were still issuing paper policies on some of our products,” Aziz said — specifically, those for healthier clients, providing up to $750,000 in coverage.

Also available as of Monday are the firm’s new critical illness (CI) term products, which provide protection in the event of cardiac-related or cancer incidents, including heart attack, stroke and benign brain tumours. Such incidents represent more than 90% of CI insurance claims, the firm said in a release.

“People have been asking for a simplified unique product within living benefits,” Aziz said.

“Someone who had cancer can still qualify for our cardiac product, and someone who had a cardiac event can still qualify for our cancer product.”

For those who’ve had neither, the firm offers cardiac-cancer combination products.

Aziz said the firm is now considering how to make the delivery and sale of life insurance more efficient through its e-delivery platform.

“We’re always looking for ways to use artificial intelligence to shorten the number of questions [and] to access different databases so we can identify the client’s health and charge them the proper premium,” he said.