Citron Insurance

08/05/2026

“Do we need to do anything in order to specify that our insurance payouts will be to each other?”

07/27/2026

“Am I locked into my life insurance coverage?”


Life Insurance in Canada, Ontario, Toronto

07/17/2026

Left the 9-5 to build something of your own? Here's what happens to your life insurance — and what to do about it. Free consult, Toronto.

https://www.citroninsurance.com/life-insurance-self-employed-toronto

Life Insurance for the Self-Employed: What Nobody Tells You When You Go Out On Your Own

I talk to a lot of people who left a steady job to work for themselves. Lawyers who left big firms. Consultants. Real estate agents. Massage therapists. Artists. People who bet on themselves.

Almost every one of them remembers the moment they started their business. None of them remember that when they left a 9-5, their group life insurance quietly disappeared with it.

That's not a knock on anyone. It's just how it goes. When you're employed, someone else handles this by default. A policy comes bundled with the job, premiums come off your paycheque before you even notice, and nobody ever asks you to think about it. You're covered because you clocked in somewhere.

The day you go out on your own, that default disappears. And there's no "how to start my business" course. In other words, nobody tells you you aren't insured.

The safety net you didn't know you had

Most people don't think of their group benefits as insurance so much as a line item on an offer letter. It's just there. Which is exactly why so few people replace it when it's gone.

I've had clients realize this a year or two into running their own business — usually not because they sat down and audited their coverage, but because something prompted it. A client asked what happens to the contract if something happens to them. A partner brought it up. Or they just had a quiet moment wondering what their family would actually be left with if things went sideways, God forbid, and they realized the honest answer was: less than they thought.

Why self-employed coverage isn't harder, just different

Here's where people tend to assume the worst. They think because their income isn't a steady T4 salary, getting insured is going to be complicated, expensive, or require some kind of forensic audit of their finances.

It isn't, and it doesn't. It's just a different starting point.

When you're employed, an insurer looks at your salary and calls it a day. When you're self-employed, we typically look at your income over the last two to three years — averaged, not cherry-picked from your best quarter — along with what your business actually does and how established it is. A first-year freelancer with lumpy income gets underwritten differently than someone running a profitable practice for a decade. Neither one is disqualifying. It just means the conversation starts with a bit more context than "here's my pay stub."

In other words: variable income doesn't mean you can't get properly covered. It just means the math looks a little different, and a broker who's done this before knows how to build the case.

What's actually on the line

For an employed person, the calculation is fairly straightforward — mortgage, dependents, income replacement. For a business owner, there's usually a second layer sitting quietly underneath that.

Business debt with your name on the personal guarantee. A partner who's counting on you being there. Clients or contracts that exist specifically because of your relationship with them, not some interchangeable employee. If you're the business, in a very real sense, then the business is also exposed every time you are.

While there are more advanced strategies in place, key person insurance or buy-sell agreements — those are a separate conversation for a separate day. What we're talking about is simpler: making sure that if something happens to you, your family isn't left untangling a business and a mortgage and everything else at the same time, with nothing to fall back on.

Where to actually start

The starting point is the same conversation any good insurance agent should start with: who depends on you, what are your financial obligations, and what would actually need to happen financially if you weren't there. The only difference for someone self-employed is that we spend a bit more time on the income side of that picture, and a bit more time asking what the business itself owes and who it leans on.

It's not particularly complicated, it just is not typically a priority when you're building your empire.

If you left a steady job to build something of your own, and you haven't thought about this since you handed in your notice, that's a completely normal place to be. It's also worth a conversation before it becomes an emergency one.

Reach out any time. That conversation is always free.

Left the 9-5 to build something of your own? Here's what happens to your life insurance — and what to do about it. Free consult, Toronto.

07/01/2026

Happy Canada Day! 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦

I’m super passionate about being Canadian — it’s part of why going to the World Cup last month (previous post) meant so much to me.

I have to say though, it’s always bothered me that we don’t celebrate Canada Day enough in this country. There’s a distinct lack of patriotism and flags out there. So, I ordered a lawn sign from my MP, Leslie Church small act, but it felt right. So thanks for the lawn sign, Leslie!

In the spirit of celebrating Canada, we actually have one of the best taxation systems in the world for Life Insurance benefits.

In other words, Life Insurance benefits are paid out completely tax-free. Just another reason why we’ve got the best country in the world!

This means that when you’re calculating how much coverage you need, you typically don’t have to factor in taxes.

What you see on the quote is what your family gets.

What’s more is that for the right people, that same tax structure makes leveraging insurance, an extremely powerful tool to build and preserve wealth as efficiently as possible.

Happy Canada Day. 🍁

06/28/2026

Wow. The World Cup knockout stage starts today, and Canada is playing! I remember waking up early with my dad to watch France play in ‘98, and again in the middle of the night to see Brazil in 2002.

Soccer unites people. Families, communities, entire countries. The moments of togetherness and preserving those moments are exactly why I got into this business.
I certainly never thought we’d get to say this, but Canada is playing at the world cup, and they can actually advance.

Hopefully they pull through. 🍁🍁🍁

Thinking of my dad especially today. He would have loved this

06/28/2026

Wow. The World Cup knockout stage starts today, and Canada is playing! I remember waking up early with my dad to watch France play in '98, and again in the middle of the night to see Brazil in 2002.

Soccer unites people. Families, communities, entire countries. The moments of togetherness and preserving those moments are exactly why I got into this business.

I certainly never thought we'd get to say this, but Canada is playing at the world cup, and they can actually advance.

Hopefully they pull through. 🍁

Thinking of my dad especially today, he would have loved this.

06/10/2026

https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/lifestyle/commoner-bartender-struck-by-vehicle-roncesvalles-community-raises-over-21k-12403127

Life happens fast, and in our best moments, the unimaginable can happen. Luckily, the community is stepping in to help this young woman's recovery.

Unforutnately, most people cannot rely on this kind of crowdfunding, that's where disability insurance comes in.

Get in touch or visit citroninsurance.com to learn more.

When The Commoner bartender Teal Arnot nearly died after being hit by a car on Bloor Street West, her biggest concern was how she would pay her bills

05/12/2026

What do you think about when you think about your Mom?

For me, I smile. My mom is a serious success story. The kind that almost never gets talked about. Like many parents out there, my mom had to overcome obstacles I can't even imagine.

She immigrated to Canada as a young girl not knowing any English. She essentially taught herself a new language by watching TV and had to overcome all the challenges that new Canadians still face today.

At my age, she was working full time as a flight attendant while managing three young children. I remember her coming home with stories and small gifts from around the world.

For her, family was always the #1 priority. It's a lesson I take with me to this day.

When family is truly the priority, that means making the time for the necessary conversations. One of those, of course, is what to do about your insurance.

If you've been meaning to have that conversation — reach out! Consults are completely free for moms. (and for everyone else, too!)

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

04/13/2026

https://www.citroninsurance.com/life-insurance-young-families-toronto

Life Insurance For Young Families in Toronto

If someone depends on your income, you need life insurance. Here's why Toronto families can't afford to wait — and why it's more affordable than you think.

Life insurance is a difficult thing for most people to think about. There's an initial reputation which surrounds it - the travelling salesman with the trench coat and the briefcase - and that image has done the industry a real disservice. Because when people picture an insurance broker, they sometimes picture someone who lacks integrity. Someone who's selling you something you don't need.

The reality is that life insurance exists for a reason. And that reason is simple: managing risk.

It's no secret that living in Toronto right now is a challenge. Everything seems to always be getting more expensive, and a lot of people are barely getting by on the income they have. We understand that.

But here's what I want you to think about for a second. Imagine you didn't have that income. What would happen? How would you buy food? How would you pay your rent, your mortgage? How would you take care of your kids?

That's the fundamental question life insurance is built around.

The moment everything changes:

Life insurance becomes relevant the second someone else starts relying on you. The moment you buy a property with a partner. The moment you move in together. The moment you decide to have children, to start a family, to make a promise to somebody that you're going to take care of them.

All of those responsibilities still apply even if you're gone. The mortgage doesn't pause. The kids still need to eat. The income constraints are still there - except now there's one less person providing. And the question becomes: who's going to take care of my people if something happens to me?

When you start a family, your income becomes someone else's lifeline. They're relying on you for care, for support, and a lot of the time, that comes in the form of finances.

Why some Canadian families still don't have life insurance:

More and more families are getting smart about this. But there's still a large portion of the population that is either underinsured or not insured at all. That happens for a few reasons.

The first is that it's not an immediate, in-your-face need. Most people aren't sick. Most people aren't watching others around them get sick. It's out of sight, out of mind.

The second is that when you're barely making ends meet, spending money on insurance feels like a bad use of money. You can understand that.

But the third reason is the real one: most people are genuinely reluctant to sit down and think about worst case scenarios. To think about death. To think about what would actually happen to their family if they weren't here anymore.

And that's exactly why it matters so much. Because no matter what you think about these things, the risks exist. You can choose to accept that risk — that's your call. But it's extremely important to be honest about it. To do the math and ask: what would actually happen if, God forbid, I wasn't here to pay this mortgage? To feed these kids?

Why term insurance is where young families start:

When it comes to life insurance for young families, it's different for everyone — as with most complex things, it always depends. But typically, term life insurance is where things start.

For a few hundred dollars a year, you can get a million dollars or more in coverage. In the grand scheme of things, that's significant protection for a modest cost.

There's another reason that term makes sense when you're young: your earning potential is at its greatest right now. The income you're going to bring in over the next few decades is the thing your family is counting on. Term insurance protects that.

And being young means being cheap to insure. Insurance companies are essentially buying your risk — you pay them, and they assume what could go wrong. At 25, that's a very different proposition than at 55. The younger and healthier you are, the less expensive that contract is going to be. Which means the longer you wait, the more it costs.

What life insurance actually does for your family:

Let's think about what a death benefit actually means in practice. To understand that, you have to picture the scenario where you don't have one.

When a partner or parent passes away, your entire focus, rightfully, is on grief. On being with your family. On getting through what is likely the hardest period of your life. The last thing you want to be worrying about is money. But if the primary income earner is suddenly gone and there's no coverage, that's exactly what your family is left dealing with. In addition to the worst thing that has ever happened to them, they now have to figure out how to put food on the table.

For me personally, that's the biggest reason I have insurance. God forbid something happens to me, I want to still be able to pay my half of the mortgage and provide for the people I love.

And it's not just abstract. It's about where your family is going to live. If you need two incomes to afford the neighborhood you're in, and one of those incomes disappears, there's a real chance you're going to have to move. You might have to pull the kids out of their school. That would mean they leave their friends, their community, the network they've built. You might have to move cities entirely, back to wherever family is, just to have help with childcare.

So you're bereaved. The worst thing has happened. And on top of that, your entire life has been uprooted because the math is no longer adding up.

That's what life insurance prevents.

The best time was ten years ago:

When it comes to timing, the best time to get life insurance is when you don't need it. Because people who do need it, (people who are sick, people who are older) often can't get it. That's the real tragedy.

The best time to have locked this in was ten years ago. You're never going to be as young or as healthy as you are right now. It's like planting a tree.

But the second best time is today. And that's okay.

You've been driving around without an air bag for a while. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get one installed now just because you haven't had a crash yet.

If you're a young family in Toronto and you've been putting this off, it's worth one conversation. That conversation is always free. It's likely a lot simpler than you think, it's more affordable than you think, and it might be the most important thing you do for your family this year.

You can reach out anytime!