After some delay, my wife and I decided it
was time to buy Life Insurance. Our first child really was the game-changer in
so many ways and the driving factor behind this. After going through the
motions of doing my own research, finding interviewing 3 brokers (because we
didn’t shop for the best rates ourselves) and subsequently choosing a local
broker in Toronto and buying a policy I felt the need to document my experience.
I should prefer this by saying I went in knowing nothing about Life Insurance.
I work in Finance; my wife in Marketing and neither of us had any idea about
the products or the process to get Life Insurance. As we dug deeper, we started
to realize how very important of a decision it was and both felt a sense of
ease once we got the A-OK from our broker.
This brings me to our broker. As I
mentioned we decided to go with a broker after quickly realizing working with
an agent strictly allows you to quote from one company. Working with a broker
is something we have chosen to do in the past for other services and it has
seemed to work well. Here specifically,
a Life Insurance Broker is a better option as they can get rates from all the
Insurance companies in the GTA then provide the best rates. We subsequently
found the following 3 companies and chose to reach out to each for quotes based
on Google/Facebook reviews, their history and website feasibility and location.
We actually contacted more than 5 but found others to be completely
unresponsive.
Option 1: https://insurancestoronto.ca/
We reached out to Insurance Toronto, which
at first glance seemed to be a company focused on Life Insurance however; we
quickly found that the company was not necessarily an expert in Life Insurance.
Some insurance brokers sell both Personal insurance (Life, Critical Illness,
Disability, etc) and this turned out to be one of those. After submitting the
online form for a requested call back, a rep called us the next day asking for
information on who our home and auto insurance is. They ultimately had to
re-direct us twice to their in-house ‘Life Prime’ – not sure why that stuck
with me but nonetheless they were able to assist. While we discussed what
options, they would recommend we did not get into much detail on the different
types of Life Insurance. The most disappointing part of the process was when
the rep subsequently sent us back a couple of quotes for Permanent insurance
when we specifically mentioned Term insurance based on our tight family budget.
That said, the rep did send a follow-up
quote in adequate time but from a customer service perspective and ultimately
from a pricing perspective as well, this option fell short.
We found this company via Facebook. While
we did not type in our search for a Toronto Life Insurance Broker anywhere in
the search criteria within Facebook it seems the internet is now listening to
everything. I will not bore you with my thoughts on this topic but nonetheless,
we thought to click on the ad in Facebook to see what they were about after
reading what we thought were candid reviews and positive information about the
company. We went to the Facebook page and found a link to speak to an advisor
online, which seemed reasonable enough and worked well though they quickly
requested we call a 1-888 # to get more info. To us, this sounded suspicious
but we called nonetheless and after going through some prompts found a live
person! In speaking to the woman, she was helpful though when I asked who she
was and how we could set up a meeting she consistently pushed the fact that an
application could ONLY be done over the phone and setting up a meeting would
require us to travel to their office to meet with another rep (not her). Again,
this became more and more suspicious and while we did end up going through the
process to get some quotes I didn’t feel comfortable giving out sensitive
personal information over the phone to someone I had never met. Furthermore,
having to travel North of Toronto to meet a representative was not something I
was keen to do. The overall experience had an essence of commodity to it – like
buying tissue paper at the grocery store.
Option 3: Simpli Insurance - http://simpliinsurance.ca/
When searching for a local Life Insurance
broker it was equally as important to find some local, with good reviews and
ultimately someone real. We found this and then some with Marino @ Simpli
Insurance, a Life Insurance Broker servicing the Greater Toronto Area. After
visiting the website and reading many positive Google Reviews we left a Request
for Quote and got a call within a few hours from Marino who asked politely for
some time to discuss our family’s needs. We went through some of the
particulars and then said he would go back to shop our rates against all of the
Top Insurance companies in Ontario. Early the following day we received a
detailed quote highlighting what he felt was the best product and why followed
by a call later in the day. While we missed that call, we were extremely
impressed by the service exhibited and gave Marino a call back the next day. We
had another chat and decided we had found the product for us and set up a
meeting with Marino later that week to fill out an application. Marino came to
us, at our home, in the evening nonetheless and was patient and courteous
throughout the process answering all our questions there on the spot. He
explained that after the application, we should expect a response in 6 weeks
and best of all we did not need a medical! Sure enough, we were approved and
Marino came to meet us again, this time at my parents’ residence to deliver the
policies. For anyone with a family you know how hard it is to make time so
Marino being able to come to us was so valuable. It’s easy to see why Simpli
Insurance comes so highly recommended because we would certainly be another one
to put up a glowing review of his team’s services.
Thanks Marino & Simpli Insurance – The Best Life Insurance Broker in the Greater Toronto Area!
