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Life Insurance With AFib (Atrial Fibrillation) in Canada
By Parvesh Benning, Licensed Life Insurance Broker · Updated: July 31, 2026
On one file a carrier split a 300% rating into its parts, and the treated atrial fibrillation turned out to be the cheaper half.
Most people assume a heart rhythm diagnosis is the expensive line on a life insurance application. Carrier files say otherwise. This guide covers how Canadian insurers price atrial fibrillation, what an ablation changes and when, and where the no-medical plans quietly close the door.
Life Insurance With AFib (Atrial Fibrillation) in Canada
By Parvesh Benning, Licensed Life Insurance Broker · Updated: July 31, 2026
On one file a carrier split a 300% rating into its parts, and the treated atrial fibrillation turned out to be the cheaper half.
Most people assume a heart rhythm diagnosis is the expensive line on a life insurance application. Carrier files say otherwise. This guide covers how Canadian insurers price atrial fibrillation, what an ablation changes and when, and where the no-medical plans quietly close the door.
A 150% rating is not terrible, and it does not mean settling for a smaller policy.
Most people land here expecting a decline. What happens with atrial fibrillation is stranger: the same history draws a rating at one insurer and a standard offer at another, in the same month, on the same evidence.
How often it happens
Episodes per year sets the band
How long since the ablation
Twelve months is the line that matters
What else is on the file
Structural heart disease outranks rhythm
What this guide covers
Is AFib Considered Heart Disease for Life Insurance in Canada?
Yes. Every Canadian insurer underwrites it as a heart condition. That tells you nothing about the price, which is the part that actually moves.
One file I sent out came back at 300%. Then the underwriter did something they rarely put in writing. She broke it into parts.
One carrier’s tentative assessment on one file. Preliminary opinions are non-binding, are not offers, and depend on a completed application and full underwriting.
The rhythm took a quarter of the loading. The stent took three times that.
On that file the rhythm was the smaller problem by a wide margin. That is often how it goes where AFib has been treated, has stayed quiet, and there is nothing structural underneath it. A recurrent or poorly controlled rhythm, or one tied to a stroke or a valve problem, is a different file and gets priced like one.
Either way, nobody tells you which half is which, because the letter says 300% and stops.
CONTROLLED
Minimum 150%
NOT CONTROLLED
Decline
Canada Life’s published underwriting position on atrial fibrillation. Subject to change and to full underwriting.
Everything hangs on that one word, and no insurer publishes a single definition of it. Across the guides I work from, the same elements keep turning up:
No recent recurrence
Medication stable
Investigations finished
Nothing pending with cardiology
Acceptable ventricular function
No significant valve or structural disease
Follow-ups kept up
A general pattern drawn across several carrier guides, not any single insurer’s stated definition. Weighting varies by insurer and by file.
How much of that list an insurer insists on shifts from one carrier to the next, and if you are managing more than one diagnosis at once, how they stack them matters more than the rhythm does.
What Canadian Insurers Look At When You Have AFib
How often it happens, how recently, what was done about it, and whether the tests came back clean. The diagnosis is close to the least interesting thing on the file.
Underwriters are after patterns, not labels. You hand them a diagnosis expecting a verdict, and they go hunting through three years of cardiology notes looking for a shape.
Sun Life publishes the seven things it works from:
Date of diagnosis
Episodes per year
Date of last episode
Medication and anticoagulants
Whether you had an ablation
Cardiac test results
Follow-up compliance
They also want a report from your doctor carrying the ECG or echocardiogram results, so those get pulled whether you offer them or not.
Seven items, and one of them does most of the work. Episode frequency is the spine. Beneva puts numbers against it, which is rare and useful:
Standard possible
One episode, over a year ago, fully investigated, no known cause
+50 to +75
Intermittent, fewer than three episodes a year
+50 to +125
Constant, more than three episodes a year
Probable decisions drawn from Beneva’s underwriting guidelines. Estimates only, not binding, and a final decision rests on the complete file.
Note where that scale ends. Even constant AFib with more than three episodes a year lands inside a price. An expensive one, but a price.
Which is why the tests matter more than people expect. A clean ECG turns “it is under control” into something an underwriter can put a number against, and above certain amounts they get ordered automatically under the carrier’s evidence rules anyway.
How an Ablation Changes Your Rate, and When
It moves the price down, but only once the clock runs. Sun Life’s published position puts a successful ablation at 150% inside the first year and standard after twelve months with no recurrence.
That twelve-month line is the most useful number on this page, and almost nobody applying knows it exists.
Day one
Nobody gives you a good answer yet. Too recent, no follow-up testing on file. This is where people apply anyway and collect a decline.
Three months, first Holter
On a file I ran after a second ablation, one carrier said a favourable result would support 150%. Two others put the same file at a minimum of +75.
Twelve months, the cutover
Sun Life’s treatment flips. Inside a year, 150%. Past a year with no recurrence, standard opens up. Same person, different side of a date.
Three and a half years out
A client’s ablation held. One large insurer offered a rating he would not accept. The next approved him at standard rates on identical evidence.
Carrier positions are published guidance, subject to change. Preliminary assessments are non-binding. Outcomes depend on the full application.
Two insurers, one client, one set of records. One answer was unusable and the other was the best available in the market. The diagnosis did not decide that. The choice of carrier did.
What stops the twelve-month rule working
AFib found on a recent exam with no investigations behind it
A clot-related event, stroke or TIA
Moderate or severe valve disease, or cardiomyopathy
A positive stress test nobody followed up on
A clean twelve months after an ablation is a strong position. The same twelve months sitting on top of underlying ischemic heart disease is a different file, and it gets priced like one.
What a 150% Rating Costs Per Month
One and a half times the standard premium, with one wrinkle almost nobody outside the industry knows: the policy fee is not rated. It comes out before the multiple and goes back in after.
The best question a client ever asked me about this was four words long. “So 150% just means 1.5x the cost?” Yes. And a lot more reasonable in dollars than it sounds in percentages.
THE CALCULATION
( premium − $4.50 policy fee ) × rating + $4.50
$1,000,000, 30-year term, man aged 35, non-smoker, starting from $101 a month
( $100.80 − $4.50 ) × 1.5 = $144.45
$144.45 + $4.50 = $148.95 a month
Sample premiums are illustrations only. They assume non-smoker status, standard underwriting and no additional health concerns, and they reflect current carrier rates at the time of writing. The rated column is derived from the standard figure using the calculation above. Final premiums depend on age, sex, coverage amount, term length, health history and insurer approval.
| Term | Standard | At 150% |
|---|---|---|
| 25 years | $75 | $110 |
| 30 years | $101 | $149 |
| 35 years | $138 | $204 |
Man aged 35, non-smoker, $1,000,000 level term. Rates are Canada-wide and not province-specific. Illustration only.
A million dollars of thirty-year coverage at 150% lands under $150 a month. That is the number people brace themselves for a decline over.
A rating does not automatically shrink the policy either. How much you can buy still depends on the insurer’s product maximum, your age, and financial underwriting against your income and estate, but the rating itself is not the thing limiting it.
One client of mine came in at $128 a month for a million over twenty-seven years, because twenty-seven was what was left on his mortgage. Stretch the same file to thirty-five years and it was $210. The back end of a long term is astronomically expensive, and if the need genuinely runs that far, permanent coverage is the more honest conversation.
Two mechanics worth real money that never come up unless your broker raises them.
SAVED BY BACKDATING
$3,888
His birthday fell in December, which made him 36 nearest at the application date. Backdating held him at 35. The difference was $12 a month across twenty-seven years, for the cost of one extra month up front.
INITIAL PREMIUM SUBMITTED
$85
That was the first month’s premium sent in with the application, not the price of the cover. On that file it activated temporary coverage while underwriting ran, rather than cover starting at approval.
Temporary insurance is governed by the carrier’s own agreement, which carries its own eligibility questions, maximum amount, exclusions and payment conditions. It is not automatic, it is not offered on every application, and it has to be confirmed on the specific case rather than assumed.
Reading the notation: +50 = 150% = 1.5× · +75 = 1.75× · +100 = 200% = 2×
Where Canadian Carriers Disagree on AFib
They disagree on what to measure. Four insurers, four different tests, one patient.
This is why a quote comparison tool is close to useless on a rhythm condition. It shows you every price in the market, and none of that helps if the carrier at the top will not cover you. Appetite comes first. Price comes last.
CANADA LIFE
Is the rhythm controlled?
Controlled sits at minimum 150%. Uncontrolled is a decline.
SUN LIFE
How long since the ablation?
Inside a year, 150%. Past a year with no recurrence, standard.
HUMANIA
Did anyone finish investigating?
Full workup can reach standard. Without it, +50% to decline. More on Humania.
Published carrier underwriting guidance, current at the time of writing and subject to change. Probable positions, not offers. All refer to fully underwritten coverage.
Same diagnosis. Four different best answers depending on which of those four questions your file happens to answer well.
Eighteen months past a clean ablation is a strong position at Sun Life specifically, because that is the carrier pricing on ablation timing. Elsewhere the same file gets read against episode history, medication, and what the investigations actually showed, so the answer may land differently. Frequent episodes with a thin file may run into trouble at Humania and still be priceable at Beneva.
I do not pigeonhole a client into one company, and I would be suspicious of anyone who tells you a single carrier is the answer for a rhythm condition. The job is working out which question your file answers best, then going there first.
Which is the argument against applying direct. One insurer can only run its own test. If you have already been turned down once, that is very often what happened, and it is fixable more often than people assume.
No-Medical Life Insurance With AFib: Read the Question, Not the Brochure
No-medical plans are frequently harder to get with AFib than fully underwritten ones, because a single named condition on a declaration form closes the entire tier. No judgment call, no underwriter reviewing your file. Just a question you have to answer yes to.
Not all simplified providers are the same. The questions differ carrier to carrier. The job is finding the one whose questions match your situation, not the one with the lowest sticker price.
Same person, treated AFib, four different doors:
Assumption Platinum
Names arrhythmia directly, with a five-year diagnosis window and a two-year window on medication changes
CLOSED
Assumption Golden, Silver, Bronze
Arrhythmia is not named on these declarations at all. Different tier, different question set
LIKELY OPEN
Beneva Simplified
Names arrhythmia with no time limit. There is no waiting it out
CLOSED
Canada Protection Plan
Banded by time. Two years opens Deferred Life, four years Deferred Elite, five years Simplified Elite
TIME-GATED
Based on current declaration wording and published product guidance, subject to change. Eligibility rests entirely on how you answer the live application. The Golden, Silver and Bronze position reflects the absence of an arrhythmia question rather than a stated permission, so confirm it against the current form before relying on it.
Read that second row again. The same applicant, the same insurer, and the door is shut on one tier and open on another. Nothing about the medical history changed. The form did.
Which is why “no medical” is a misleading label. Simplified issue asks fewer health questions and usually skips the fluids and the exam, but it is still underwritten, and the answers you give are binding.
Find out which of two things you are actually buying
Full cover from day one, with a pre-existing condition exclusion. The policy pays from the start, but claims arising from a condition you already had are excluded for an initial period, often twelve or twenty-four months. On a rhythm file that exclusion can land squarely on the thing you were insuring against.
A limited benefit during a deferral period. A different mechanism entirely. Death from natural causes in the first couple of years returns your premiums rather than the face amount, whatever the cause. Accidental death is usually covered in full from day one.
Those are not the same contract and the difference matters enormously here. The policy wording controls it, not the brochure and not the product name.
I have turned down the first kind for clients where the exclusion sat directly on top of the condition they came to me about. Where a limited-benefit plan is genuinely the best route available, that is a legitimate answer, but it should be a decision the client makes knowing exactly what pays and when.
Used properly these plans are genuinely useful, most often as a bridge while a fully underwritten application runs. If that is where you are, start with what no-medical actually costs and which plans are worth looking at before anyone puts a form in front of you.
Life Insurance With a Pacemaker in Canada
A pacemaker changes the answer even when the arrhythmia does not. On some no-medical forms the device question is worded ever, which means no amount of elapsed time clears it.
This is the part that catches people out. Someone with treated AFib and no device can wait out a five-year window and answer no. Fit that same person with a pacemaker two decades ago and they are answering yes for the rest of their life.
Arrhythmia, no device
Time works for you. Once the diagnosis window and the medication-change window have both passed, the question can be answered no.
Pacemaker or ICD
Assumption’s Platinum declaration asks whether you have ever had a pacemaker or ICD inserted. There is no elapsed-time exception on that tier.
Based on current declaration wording, subject to change. Other tiers within the same insurer use different question sets, so a closed door on one product does not mean a closed door at that company. Confirm against the live application.
The device is the hard bar, not the rhythm. That single distinction decides more no-medical applications than anything in the medical file.
Fully underwritten is a different conversation, and a more hopeful one:
FIRST 12 MONTHS
Postpone
ADULT, AFTER THAT
200% to standard
ICD OR CRT
Unlikely to be considered
Sun Life’s published position for a permanent pacemaker where the cause is unknown. The rating varies with age at application. Subject to change and to full underwriting.
Read that middle box carefully. Standard is in the range. A permanent pacemaker does not automatically mean a rated policy on the fully underwritten side, which is the opposite of what most people are told, and it is why the no-medical route is often the wrong first move for someone with a device.
Two practical notes. Cause matters, so an underwriter will want to know whether the device went in for heart block, sick sinus syndrome, coronary disease or something never identified. And critical illness coverage is treated far more harshly than life coverage here, with a permanent pacemaker or ICD generally declining outright, so do not assume an approval on one line means an approval on the other. If you are past sixty and weighing this, the options open at older ages are worth reviewing alongside it.
Tachycardia, SVT and Other Rhythm Disorders
Most no-medical forms do not distinguish between them. They ask about arrhythmia as a category, which sweeps everything below into one answer.
SVT
Atrial flutter
Tachycardia
PACs and PVCs
Atrial fibrillation
↓
THE WORD ON THE FORM
arrhythmia
Reflects the category-based wording used on several current declarations. Wording varies by carrier and by tier, and changes over time.
So on the no-medical side, a diagnosis of supraventricular tachycardia lands you in the same place as atrial fibrillation. Not because they carry the same risk, but because the form never asked which one you had.
One file of mine bears that out. A client with tachycardia was not offered a simplified plan at all. The route that came back was Canada Protection Plan’s Deferred Life, which pays a limited benefit during an initial period rather than covering you fully from day one, and the time bands that govern arrhythmia applied.
Where I have to be straight with you
The major carrier guides I work from publish detailed positions on atrial fibrillation and on pacemakers. They do not publish condition-specific guidance for SVT, atrial flutter or ventricular tachycardia. Those files get assessed one at a time on the evidence, which means anyone quoting you a confident number for SVT is guessing.
That is not a reason to assume the worst. It is a reason not to submit an application blind. A preliminary inquiry costs nothing and produces a real answer, which is the subject of the next section.
One distinction genuinely does matter to underwriters, though, and it is worth knowing before you talk to anyone. Extra beats in an otherwise structurally normal heart and extra beats sitting on top of an underlying heart muscle problem are not the same object. The count of abnormal beats is rarely what drives the decision. What the heart looks like underneath them usually is, and that is where working through a broker who can test several carriers earns its keep.
What to Do Before You Apply With AFib
Get an answer before you submit anything. A broker can put your file in front of several carriers without your name attached, and their replies tell you where to apply and roughly what to expect.
I do not like jumping the gun on a rhythm file. I want a solid path to an approval before anything official goes in, because a decline follows you.
1
Gather the evidence
Holter and ECG results, ablation date, medication history, recent cardiology notes.
2
Ask without your name
The clinical picture goes to the underwriting desk. No name, no application, no underwriting decision.
3
Compare what comes back
On one file I sent the same summary to three carriers and had all three answers inside two days. On another, two desks never replied at all.
4
Apply once
To the carrier whose question your file answers best, with the written opinion attached.
Preliminary opinions are tentative, non-binding, and subject to a completed application and full underwriting. Carriers generally require the written opinion to be submitted with the application. Turnaround varies by carrier and by how complex the file is.
Why the anonymous part matters. Every application I have seen asks whether you have ever been declined, postponed or rated. That question carries no time limit. A decline you collected two years ago is still something you disclose, and it shapes how the next underwriter reads you.
Because no formal application is submitted, a preliminary inquiry generally does not create a decline, a postponement or a rating that you would later have to disclose as an application outcome. Carriers do keep their own correspondence and recordkeeping practices vary, so it is not a promise of invisibility. It is simply a long way better than applying blind.
Three things that will delay you
A medication change inside the last six months. Six months of stability is roughly what carriers want to see, and more is better.
A pending procedure. With surgery scheduled, even the no-medical providers will generally not write it.
A doctor’s office that will not return the request. On most files I have run, the report from your physician is the bottleneck, not the diagnosis. A phone call from you moves it faster than anything I can do.
None of this requires you to have decided anything. If you have AFib and you are trying to work out whether coverage is realistic, the honest first step is a conversation and a few anonymous questions, not an application.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I get life insurance with atrial fibrillation in Canada?
Yes, in most cases. Canadian insurers underwrite atrial fibrillation as a cardiac condition and price it rather than refusing it outright. Canada Life’s published position puts controlled atrial fibrillation at a minimum of 150%, and Sun Life allows standard rates more than twelve months after a successful ablation with no recurrence. Outcomes depend on episode frequency, how recently it was treated, and what else is on your cardiac file.
Do I have to tell the insurer about my AFib?
Yes. Answer every application question truthfully and completely. Insurers routinely obtain a report from your doctor on cardiac files, so the history surfaces regardless, and an inaccurate answer can put a future claim at risk. Disclosure is also what allows a broker to find the carrier that treats your specific history most favourably.
What does a 150% rating actually cost?
One and a half times the standard premium, calculated after the policy fee is removed and added back afterwards. As an illustration, a man aged 35, non-smoker, buying $1,000,000 of 30-year term starting from $101 a month at standard rates would pay roughly $149 a month at 150%. Figures are illustrative, Canada-wide, and subject to underwriting and change.
Does an ablation improve my chances?
Generally yes, once enough time has passed. Sun Life’s published treatment rates a successful ablation at 150% within the first year and allows standard rates beyond twelve months where there has been no recurrence. Applying in the weeks after the procedure tends to produce a rating or a postponement rather than a better answer, because the follow-up testing that supports the file has not happened yet.
Can I get no-medical life insurance with AFib?
Sometimes, and it is often harder than fully underwritten coverage. Several no-medical declarations name arrhythmia directly, and answering yes closes that product regardless of how well controlled you are. Others band it by time, and some tiers within the same insurer do not ask the question at all. Simplified issue asks fewer health questions and usually skips the exam, but it is still underwritten and your answers are binding.
Can I get life insurance with a pacemaker?
Yes on the fully underwritten side, and it is frequently the better route. Sun Life’s published position for a permanent pacemaker of unknown cause is a postponement within the first twelve months, then a range running from 200% down to standard depending on age. No-medical plans are less forgiving, because some declarations ask whether you have ever had a pacemaker or ICD inserted, which no amount of elapsed time clears.
Can my rating improve later if my AFib stays stable?
It can, though it is handled case by case and no insurer commits to it in advance. Once abnormal findings have been investigated, treated, and the results sit back inside normal limits, a request for a rating review can be submitted with updated evidence. Where a review is not offered, a stronger cardiac record often supports a fresh application elsewhere at better pricing.
Get a Real Answer on Your AFib File Before You Apply
If you have atrial fibrillation and you are trying to work out whether coverage is realistic, the useful first step is not an application. It is a few anonymous questions put to the right carriers.
It costs you nothing and does not put a formal application on file. How quickly the answers come back depends on the carrier and how complex your file is.
TALK TO A BROKER DIRECTLY
Or get in touch here and describe what is on your file. Independent brokerage, comparing carriers rather than selling one.
Protect Your Wealth has helped Canadians place difficult medical files since 2007, offering life insurance and segregated fund solutions. We are licensed in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
This page is general information, not medical, legal, tax or financial advice. Carrier positions and rates are current at the time of writing and subject to change. Underwriting outcomes vary by individual and by insurer. Speak with a licensed advisor about your own situation.
