Parvesh Benning is the founder and principal broker at Protect Your Wealth, an independent life insurance brokerage operating in Canada since 2007. Based in Hamilton, Ontario, and licensed across seven provinces, Parvesh works directly with Canadians who have been declined, rated, or told they cannot get coverage, helping them understand what is realistically available and how to apply with confidence.

Parvesh’s career in Canadian financial services began in January 2001 as a financial advisor at Scotiabank, where he spent four and a half years before moving into the mortgage industry working with major Canadian banks. He founded Protect Your Wealth in December 2007 and has since helped thousands of families across Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick secure life and health insurance coverage.

Working in Canadian financial services since January 2001. Licensed as a life insurance broker since 2007. The work concentrates on cases other brokers do not take: applicants with medical history, prior declines, complex underwriting, and files that need real underwriting access to place properly.

Licensing and credentials

Every claim on this page is verifiable through public records or directly with the publications cited. License status, in particular, can be confirmed through the Ontario public agent registry below.

Provincial licensing covers Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Canadians outside these seven provinces cannot be served directly. Anyone within them can be.

Featured in Canadian financial media

Parvesh has been quoted in national publications on life insurance underwriting, mental health and insurability, and personal finance. Each citation links to the original article.

Specialized cases and insurance solutions

The work spans straightforward applications and complex files, with particular focus on cases that other brokers tend to decline or struggle to place properly.

• Life insurance for applicants with medical history. Diabetes, heart conditions, cancer history, sleep apnea, mental health diagnoses, and other conditions that change underwriting outcomes. Mental health and life insurance is one of the more frequently navigated topics.
• Cases with prior declines or rated offers. A decline at one carrier is not a verdict from the industry. The same file often produces different outcomes elsewhere, and a documented decline does not block future applications when handled correctly.
• No medical and simplified issue products. For applicants who want coverage without a medical exam or who would not qualify for fully underwritten plans. No medical life insurance covers when this is the right path and when it is not.
• Critical illness and disability insurance. Coverage for diagnosis-based payouts and income protection, often paired with life insurance for full household risk coverage.
• Self-employed professionals and business owners. Personal coverage, key-person policies, and life insurance and segregated fund solutions integrated with business planning.

Provincial licensing and service area

Based in Hamilton, Ontario. Licensed and actively serving clients across seven Canadian provinces.

Why work with an independent life insurance broker

If you only call one bank or one insurer for life insurance, you are seeing one underwriting decision. An independent broker shows you what the same case looks like across every major Canadian carrier in the same conversation. The cheapest answer for one client is almost never the cheapest answer for another.

Take an applicant with controlled type 2 diabetes. One carrier might offer standard rates. Another comes back with a 50 per cent rating. A third quietly postpones the file. None of those answers are wrong. They reflect different underwriting appetite, different reinsurance treaties, and different products. A broker pulls the picture together so the application goes to the carrier most likely to come back with the best outcome on the first try.

Process matters here. Before submitting a difficult file, the standard approach is to run a preliminary assessment: contact the underwriter with a generic version of the case (specifications without identifying details) and get a read on the likely outcome. Brokers also have access to internal carrier underwriting guides that retail applicants do not. Submitting blindly creates declines that show on the Medical Information Bureau (MIB), the central record insurers share with one another. A decline is harder to undo than a careful first submission.

Cost is the part most clients do not expect. There is no fee for a consultation, application review, or carrier comparison. Broker compensation is paid by the insurance carrier when a policy is placed, not by the client. The same coverage costs the same whether purchased through a broker or directly through the carrier.

Frequently asked questions