Friday, February 28, 2020

Who is the Best Life Insurance Broker in Toronto?


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.

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!

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