Applying for Life Insurance as a Pilot in Canada

The questions themselves play a factor, because not every application is the same. If one provider isn’t asking about a specific lifestyle, that can be the reason to go with that company over another. For a pilot, flying is that lifestyle question.

Read the second one closely: a pilot who only flies commercially can answer no to it. Most applications treat an airline pilot differently from a private or student pilot.

Those questions change which products you’re eligible for. Every answer still has to be accurate, because an insurer can check it if there’s a claim in the first two years, so knowing which question you’re facing before you apply is most of the work.

Can Pilots Get Life Insurance in Canada?

Yes. Airline pilots are usually the easiest files and often come through at standard rates, and in my experience most other commercial, private and student pilots get covered too, though not always at standard rates and always depending on the full file. What you’re really asking is whether you’ll pay extra, and insurers answer that by how you fly, not by the word pilot on the application.

The accident data gives useful context for why insurers separate airline flying from private flying.

One year of data doesn’t set anyone’s rate; underwriters look at your own hours, aircraft and experience. But the pattern lines up with how the guides treat each kind of flying, which is why an airline captain and a weekend pilot can get two different answers from the same insurer.

Flying isn’t the only thing outside your health that gets this kind of look. A criminal record, travel outside the country, a risky job or a hobby go through the same review, and there’s more on what insurers treat as high risk if you’re curious.

How Insurers Rate Airline, Private and Student Pilots

Most insurers with this kind of activity, they’ll come back with what’s known as a rating, unless you’re flying for an airline. Airline pilots are usually rated standard. Private, student and recreational pilots get judged on hours, experience, age and aircraft, and if you land outside a carrier’s comfort zone the rating is usually a flat extra, a set dollar amount per $1,000 of coverage every year.

Sport flying sits a notch higher. Ultralights, hang gliders, aerobatics and balloons fall under it, and the Industrial Alliance guide runs from standard to $7.50 per $1,000, sometimes with an exclusion for the flying instead.

Paid Flying Outside the Airlines

If you get paid to fly anything other than a scheduled airliner, expect a flat extra in many cases, quoted per $1,000 of coverage a year. Some regulated commuter, cargo and large charter work can still come through standard. These are guide ranges and one real file, not offers.

If that’s you, the helicopter and bush pilot guide near the top of this page goes deeper, including when a no-exam policy with no aviation surcharge comes out cheaper.

What the Extra Premium Costs on a $500,000 Policy

A $500,000 policy rated at $5 per $1,000 would add $2,500 per year. The math never changes: the flat extra times the number of thousands of coverage, added on top of your normal premium for as long as it applies.

For a young, healthy pilot that extra can be several times the premium itself. A male 35, non-smoker, on a 20-year term for $500,000 starts from about $30 a month based on current carrier rates, and you can compare term life quotes for your own age.

The rating doesn’t follow you forever. If you stop flying, or move to something the insurer sees as less risky, ask for a review; BMO, for one, will look at an occupational rating again once you’ve held a less hazardous job for a year.

Now look at the grey column. At a $2.50 flat extra, this profile pays more fully underwritten than on a no-exam policy, and that crossover is the next section.

Aviation Exclusion or Extra Premium: Which to Accept

The exclusion is not as bad as it sounds, but only if you know what it takes away. An aviation exclusion keeps your premium where it would be without the flying, and it won’t pay a claim tied to that flying; a flat extra costs more but covers you in the air. If you’re paid to fly, you usually won’t be offered the exclusion at all.

That’s why I told one student pilot the exclusion was not as bad in his case: an older policy of his was issued before he started flying, so he was already covered in the air there. For an older pilot flying part-time, a fully underwritten policy with an exclusion can also come out cheaper than a no-exam policy that covers the flying.

When a No-Exam Policy Costs Less Than the Extra Premium

Simplified plans build in a slightly higher rate than regular policies, but they’re significantly cheaper than a policy carrying an added risk rating. For a private or student pilot at the profiles below, once the flat extra gets past roughly $1.50 per $1,000, a no-exam policy with no aviation surcharge usually costs less, as long as you can answer its health questions.

One catch with some of the simplified plans: if you’re declined or rated elsewhere, they won’t put in the coverage after the fact, so the order you apply in matters. The simplified policies I place for pilots are issued with no aviation or occupation exclusion, and the standard contract terms still apply.

It’s still underwriting, and the answers you give are binding. You can compare no-medical quotes for your own age before you decide.

The Application Questions That Decide What a Pilot Pays

I wouldn’t recommend applying at a large carrier unless you have a tentative assessment. The flying questions on the application, and the aviation questionnaire behind them, are what decide what a pilot pays. Once they’re submitted the decision is on file, and many applications ask whether you’ve ever been declined or rated, so a decline can follow you to the next insurer.

What the Aviation Questionnaire Asks

One pilot told me there were a lot of aviation questions from the Sun Life people about how many hours and what type of planes. That’s normal. Here’s what the questionnaire covers, going by the ivari aviation questionnaire and the carrier guides.

Answer the questions that are asked, directly. If you hold a flight instructor rating but don’t instruct, say so clearly, because instructing counts as paid flying at carriers like BMO. And if a question doesn’t fit how you fly, ask before you answer; one pilot client found a questionnaire’s wording misleading and inconsistent.

Want to know how insurers are likely to treat your flying before you apply? Get in touch at 1-877-654-6119 and I’ll review your flying history first. If you need coverage right away, we can place a no-exam policy and, once it’s approved and in force, apply fully underwritten, so there’s no gap while the second application is underwritten.

Group Life Through Your Airline or Union: Is It Enough?

Usually not on its own. Group coverage is typically a multiple of salary, which often isn’t enough to clear a mortgage and replace income for years, and it’s tied to your job or your membership. Before you count on it, check three things in your plan booklet: the amount, when coverage ends, and how long you have to convert it.

Those plans are worth having. The problem is what they’re tied to.

I had a client leave a plan and go to convert, but by the time they did, they were outside the window, and the window had closed. Even when you make it in time, guaranteed conversion rates are often much more expensive than the going rate for someone in good health.

So keep the group plan and put your own policy underneath it, sized to what your family actually needs. It’s normal to hold more than one policy, and it’s worth reading your group plan booklet for anything about aviation before you count on it.

Disability Insurance: The Harder Part for Pilots

For most commercial pilots, life insurance isn’t the hard part; disability is what gets challenging. Pilots can buy individual disability coverage in Canada, but fewer carriers will write it, and some exclude flying or turn down anyone who flies for pay.

Critical illness sits in the middle. Underwriters tend to exclude flying or add a percentage to the premium rather than charge per $1,000, and the simplified no-medical CI options are limited; frankly, the ones out there are not great. If you’re deciding between the two, here’s how critical illness and disability insurance each pay out.

Why Regular Disability Carriers Aren’t the First Call

For disability insurance, I would not lead with regular individual disability carriers. Aviation isn’t a category many insurers want to cover for disability, even when life and critical illness go through, because each one is underwritten differently. The simplified route (fewer health questions, no exam) doesn’t fix it either: plans such as the iA Acci-Jet Program exclude non-passenger flight, so an injury at the controls isn’t covered.

So we usually go to a provider with no restriction on occupation and non-integrated benefits. Disability is unique in that it normally integrates, meaning what you collect from a group disability plan or government benefits can reduce what your own policy pays. A non-integrated plan pays its full benefit regardless.

One real file, shown as an example of what’s possible, not a promise. Standard contract exclusions still apply, and your benefit, waiting period and price depend on your income, age, health and the flying you do.

Disability Insurance vs Loss-of-Licence Cover

Loss-of-licence cover is usually bought through a pilot association, your employer or a specialty insurer. It sits beside individual disability insurance, not in place of it.

If you fly for a living, sort out the disability side at the same time as the life policy. We can compare disability insurance quotes from the carriers that will look at pilots, and tell you which ones won’t before you apply.

Starting to Fly After Your Policy Is Issued

As long as your answers were true when you applied, starting to fly later doesn’t have an impact on the policy. Cause of death generally doesn’t matter on an individual life policy: outside the two-year suicide clause and any exclusion written into your contract, a flying accident is handled like any other claim, even if you took up flying after the policy was issued.

What decides it is when the plan to fly started, measured against three points in the policy’s life.

A client once told me, “I totally just forgot about this whole aviation thing.” Caught before the policy is issued, that’s a questionnaire and maybe a flat extra or an exclusion.

It’s much harder inside the two-year contestable period, when the insurer will search everything for anything that conflicts with the original application. The only claim I’ve seen denied in my career was inside that window, over something the client hadn’t disclosed.

If you already own a policy, check it before assuming anything. “My current term insurance doesn’t cover flying” is how one client put it, and the answer comes down to one clause:

• No aviation exclusion

  Flying you take up later is generally handled like any other cause of death, under the contract’s normal terms.

• Aviation exclusion

  A death while flying isn’t covered. A new policy can price the flying instead; keep the old one until the new one is approved and in force.

• Exclusion, but you’ve stopped flying

  Ask the insurer for a review. BMO, for one, will consider reviewing a rating or exclusion on request, with an updated health form and questionnaire.

Not sure which one you have? Send us the contract and we’ll tell you whether flying is excluded, and what a policy that includes it would cost.

Pilot Life Insurance Questions

Getting Pilot Life Insurance Quotes Compared

I don’t work for any of these companies. I work for you as my client, and for a pilot that matters more than usual: the carrier that fits an airline captain isn’t always the one that fits a student pilot or a weekend glider pilot.

When it’s just one company quoting you, it has a bias toward its own products. Compared across the board, there are many cases where a different carrier has the better answer for your flying, whether that’s an exclusion instead of an extra premium, a lower student rate, or a no-medical plan issued with no aviation exclusion.

Protect Your Wealth has been an independent life insurance broker since 2007, working with nearly 20 carriers from Hamilton, Ontario. If you’d like to see how rates get compared across carriers before you reach out, start there, and there are more broker guides built from real cases on the blog.

When you’re ready, start a quote request or call 1-877-654-6119. We’ll come back with the carriers that fit how you fly before anything is submitted.