Insurance is the best policy...

People in my family have never been big savers or investers, but they have always believed in having at least life insurance.

As I started my adult life, got a good full time job and was working to pay off my student loans in my mid-20's, I met a certified financial planner/investment adviser. Sean Salter convinced me to let him do a no obligation free financial plan for me to recommend some investments. As a planner by nature the idea of having a financial plan appealed to me. He taught me about compound interest and saving for the future. When I met Mario and we started our life together, Sean helped us to build a new plan and we included insurance as part of it. 

Abby came along and we bought a registered educational savings plan (RESP) and life insurance for her. When Ollie came along and we met with Sean to set up his RESP and life insurance, Sean told us about a new dual insurance policy that he'd just bought for his own kids that included both life AND critical illness insurance. The critical illness policy would give us money to help with loss of income if ever he became critically ill and one of us had to be off work to care for him. The difference in price was minor, so we bought the new policy and changed Abby's to the same type as well.

In the back of my mind I always thought about my grandpa who had cancer of the larnyx when my dad was just a kid. I remember stories of how my grandma had to go to work after being a stay at home mom and each of the kids had part time jobs (my dad's older siblings were teenagers) to help with family finances while my grandpa was sick. It always made me anxious to think that something like this could happen to our family, so I bought the insurances just in case, never really believing we'd ever have to use them.

My Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle Roy, Aunt Bonnie and my dad, Duncan in happier times before Grandpa had cancer and had his larnyx removed.

Grandpa survived, learned to talk through a burp without his larnyx (voicebox), survived cancer in his mouth years later and passed from it the third time in his throat almost 25 years after he had it the first time. He was a strong cancer warrior who just couldn't hold back the war that cancer waged in his body. And my grandmother was the epitome of strength and grace through it all. Her faith in God and gratitude for all that people did to help them remained strong her entire life. She told me when I was growing up that if you could help someone you always should, because we all need help at some point in our life. She was so very wise and I wish so much that she was still with us (she died two months before Ollie was born) as I know she'd understand how we feel right now as few others could.

My grandpa's socks that I got after he passed from cancer almost 30 years ago. They are magic socks that never wear out and always comfort me.

Fast forward to November 19, 2019 when we got the news at CHEO that our son was critically ill with lymphoma. Mario and I were sitting in an exam room while Ollie was with the social worker in the playroom and we were waiting for the oncologist. We started discussing what we'd need to do to get Ollie well and that one of us would need to be off of work. Mario reminded me that we had bought a critical illness policy for the kids and asked if we still had it. Honestly my brain was so overwhelmed that I had no clue what we had and didn't have beyond lymphoma at that moment. So I sent an email to Sean explaining the situation and asking him to confirm if we still had the policy for Oliver. Ever the most reliable advisor around Sean responded almost immediately, expressing his sorrow at our need for it and confirming that yes, we still had the policy and he'd put things in motion to collect on it.

Sean and his team took care of everything respectfully and efficiently. He even came to the hospital to pick up our signed forms during round 1 of chemo, bringing Ollie a gift as well and he delivered the cheque in person to our house yesterday. 

At a time when I'd never felt so stressed, sick and scared in my entire life, knowing that at least we wouldn't have to worry about money during his treatments was a true Godsend. Since my Employer has been amazing and allowed me to take all of my banked leave first, I continue to get my salary until late February, then I'll apply for Employment Insurance and we'll use the insurance money to pay the other 57% of my regular salary. Assuming his 8 months of treatments work and he does not relapse, we'll be okay financially, but we have agreed to be careful with the money in case we need to stretch it further if he needs more treatments. As always, it's the unknown that makes me anxious.

Once again, I feel like we were being equipped for this journey all along. We are so thankful for Sean and his unwavering good advice. If you don't have a Sean, consider getting one and if you're not a proponent of insurance, maybe our story will change your mind. Special thanks to my family for always teaching me to buy the insurance.

https://www.sunlife.ca/slfas/Health/Critical+illness+insurance?vgnLocale=en_CA