Lawyers Financial Insurance Review: Is It Enough on Its Own?

In this review

What Is Lawyers Financial (Formerly CBIA) and Who Insures It?

Lawyers Financial is the not-for-profit insurance and investment program for Canada’s legal community, known as the Canadian Bar Insurance Association (CBIA) until May 31, 2024. It does not insure anything itself: Manulife underwrites its term life, disability, critical illness, accident and business expense plans.

When I reviewed this disability plan for a lawyer client in 2017, I told him he was just a certificate holder, with no rights over what happens to the plan itself. It had changed insurers a couple of years before that review.

Lawyers Financial does publish one protection: if the master policy is ever terminated, term life and critical illness coverage is guaranteed to continue with Manulife at reasonable rates without proof of good health. For disability, the current webpage does not repeat that promise, but an older Lawyers Financial product sheet still on its site does. Your certificate is what governs, so check it there.

Who Can Buy Lawyers Financial Insurance

• Term life: lawyers, judges and Quebec notaries, their spouses and adult children, law firm staff and their spouses, and law students.
• Disability: lawyers, judges, Quebec notaries, law students and articling students.
• Critical illness rider: lawyers, judges and Quebec notaries, their spouses and adult children, and law firm staff and their spouses.
• Business expense: law firm partners, self-employed lawyers and Quebec notaries who pay practice expenses.

You must be under 65 and a resident of Canada when you apply, and you do not need to be a Canadian Bar Association member. These are the published terms and they can change, so confirm them against your own certificate. Home and auto insurance under the same brand runs through a separate partner and is not part of this review.

Pros and Cons of Lawyers Financial Insurance

With Lawyers Financial, which most of my lawyer clients still call CBIA, most premiums are graded and increase in five-year age bands, the rates are not guaranteed, and the range is far more limited than the open market. Against that you get not-for-profit pricing on Manulife-insured coverage and a history of premium refunds.

What I offer is access to a much broader range of products than CBIA, which is far more limited. That is the whole difference between the two columns: an independent broker can price each pro against the open market, and sometimes the plan still comes out ahead.

Every item above comes from Lawyers Financial’s own published terms or from client files. Published terms change, so check them against your certificate.

Lawyers Financial Term Life Insurance: T5, T20 and What Happens at 80

Lawyers Financial term life is Manulife-insured coverage of up to $5,000,000 that ends when you turn 80, priced either in five-year steps (T5) or level for the first 20 years (T20). For me the conversion window is absolutely massive, and here the published one runs only from age 45 to 64.

T5: a new price every five years

T20: one price for 20 years, then every five

Illustration for coverage started at age 35. Each block is one price, and the number is the age that price starts. Coverage ends at 80.

The T20 option has been available since October 1, 2020. Neither option is described as guaranteed anywhere on the term life page, and the Lawyers Financial FAQ says premiums can also move with an overall rate change. So the blocks above show when your price is scheduled to change, not the only time it can.

What the Term Plan Includes

• Living benefit: draw up to half the death benefit or $50,000, whichever is smaller, if you become terminally ill. Only after two years in force.
• Automatic Increase Benefit: coverage grows by 10% of the original amount each year for up to 10 years with no health evidence. T5 only, and the added coverage is billed at that year’s rates.
• Volume pricing: reduced rates once coverage reaches $250,000, $500,000 and $1,000,000.
• Preferred rates: lower premiums may be available if you are healthier than most people your age. Set by underwriting, not by the quote.

The Conversion Window, Compared

Life happens, things happen, health changes. Conversion is the right to turn term into permanent coverage with no new medical evidence, and what matters is how long that right stays open.

Lawyers Financial term

RBC YourTerm

Manulife Family Term (T10, T20)

Empire Life Solution Series

Scale runs from age 30 to 80. Conditions apply on every plan, and older contracts can differ.

The same insurer sits behind two of those bars. Lawyers Financial also does not publish which insurer or product a conversion lands in; its permanent life page names Canada Life, Manulife or Sun Life as possible insurers. Miss the window and you are in the position of anyone whose term life insurance expires, only at 80.

How to Compare a Lawyers Financial Term Quote

When a lawyer couple sent me their CBIA term illustrations in 2017, the quotes were built on preferred rates. You stick with standard rates when you compare. That file had four things tilting the comparison, and each one has a fix.

Two notes on that. In my experience annual billing is often roughly 8 to 9% less than paying monthly, though it varies by insurer, so mixed billing flatters one side. And Lawyers Financial’s own pages disagree today on waiver: the term life page lists it as an optional rider, the critical illness details page says it is included. Find out which applies to you first.

Everything above is from published terms, which change, so confirm it against your certificate. How much coverage a practising lawyer needs is a separate question, covered in our guide to life insurance for lawyers.

Lawyers Financial Disability Insurance: What $20,000 a Month Depends On

Disability insurance is income-qualified: it is based on the income you have actually shown. So the $20,000 a month that Lawyers Financial advertises is a ceiling, subject to your age, health and proof of income, and the bigger question is which definition of disability sits behind it.

One thing to know about that base test. An older Lawyers Financial product sheet, still on its site, words it differently: unable to perform the duties of your regular occupation “and not working elsewhere”. Two official summaries, two wordings. I am not going to guess which one is in your contract, and that is exactly why I want the actual certificate before comparing the plan to anything.

Insurance companies will pay you out if you’re not able to work. But we want to make sure you’re covered if you’re not able to work in your profession. If you could be a greeter at a big-box store or work at the coffee shop, that’s one thing. That is the whole point of disability insurance for a professional, and on this plan it is the rider, not the base.

Stepped or Level Premiums: One Real Quote

Stepped rates rise every five years with your age. Level rates start higher and, in Lawyers Financial’s words, remain unchanged over time. This is what the two looked like on one lawyer’s 2020 quote for $2,500 a month of benefit.

Monthly premium: stepped beside level

One client’s 2020 quote, as relayed to us. Not a current rate and not a prediction of yours.

Stepped started at about half the level premium and passed it at the second step. My answer on that file: honestly, I would just do the level. One caution, though. Level means the rate does not rise with your age. It does not mean guaranteed: an older Lawyers Financial product sheet says disability rates are not guaranteed and can change with plan performance, and its FAQ allows for an overall rate change.

What Is Built In, What Costs Extra, and What the Current Page Leaves Out

On a file this year, a lawyer grossing about $300,000 asked for $20,000 a month of individual coverage. The most the insurer would issue was about $17,000, roughly two-thirds of income. Lawyers Financial ties its own maximum to proof of income too, so treat $20,000 as the top of a range.

By Lawyers Financial’s own 2023 claims data, 36% of its lawyers’ disability claims were for mental health. Neither document publishes limitation wording either way, so that is the clause I would ask to see, especially if you already have a diagnosis (see disability insurance with a pre-existing condition). The older sheet also warns that its terms may have changed, and it still shows a $16,000 maximum. Your certificate is the document that counts.

Lawyers Financial vs Individual Disability Insurance, Contract by Contract

There’s a meaningful difference between a fully non-cancellable, guaranteed disability plan and a cheaper group-style plan. Lawyers Financial is the group-style kind: you hold a certificate, and its own older product sheet says the rates are not guaranteed. Individual policies come in two kinds of their own, and most comparisons skip the middle one.

Own occupation is an optional rider on all three. Terms are from each company’s published material and advisor guides, including an older Lawyers Financial product sheet, and they change.

Premiums on the middle kind can change at any given point due to claims experience, similar to CBIA. The alternative is RBC or Canada Life for non-cancellable, guaranteed coverage, and the issue is you are paying significantly more upfront, which is hard to justify for everyone. So I show both and we weigh the tradeoff. One more thing to know: by 2022 Manulife, the insurer behind the Lawyers Financial plan, had stopped selling its own standalone individual disability policies.

What the Riders Cost on a Real File

In 2023 a law firm partner chose a Desjardins individual policy over the association quote she had in hand: $6,000 a month of benefit, a 90-day wait, level premium. These were the rider prices on her quote.

Monthly figures from one 2023 client quote. Not current rates. Yours depend on age, health, occupation and income.

Own occupation, the feature lawyers ask about first, cost about $20 a month on that file. And before she signed, she asked for the actual policy wording on the residual rider, so we pulled the definitions. That is the right instinct, and it works just as well on a Lawyers Financial certificate.

For the same side-by-side on your own numbers, you can get disability insurance quotes across the individual carriers and hold them against your Lawyers Financial quote. There is more background in why group disability insurance might not be enough and in our comparison of disability insurance companies in Canada.

Lawyers Financial Critical Illness Insurance: a Rider on Term Life

We always look to see: can we do a life policy with a critical illness added benefit, or does it make sense to separate the policies? Lawyers Financial makes that choice for you. Its critical illness insurance is an optional rider on its term life plan, from $25,000 to $1,000,000, and it cannot be bought or kept on its own.

What the Rider Does Well

• 25 covered conditions, including cancer, heart attack, stroke, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.
• Early intervention benefit: 15% of the coverage, to a maximum of $50,000, for three early-stage cancers, with no reduction in the coverage.
• Waiver of premium is built in if you are totally disabled for six months or longer before 65.
• It travels with you: the coverage does not change if you leave the legal profession, and a medical second-opinion service is included.

The Rider Beside a Standalone Policy From the Same Insurer

Manulife insures the Lawyers Financial rider. It also sells its own standalone critical illness plan, Lifecheque, through brokers. Same insurer, two different contracts.

Cost is one factor, but the actual coverage and everything else within it matters as well. The rider’s price rises every five years, and Lawyers Financial says in plain words that its rates are not guaranteed and can change with plan performance, next to what it calls a long history of stable rates. Three “not published” lines in that table are the ones I would ask for in writing before relying on the rider.

If the critical illness cover is the part you care about, price it as its own policy first: you can compare critical illness insurance quotes across carriers. Empire Life CI Protect Plus, Canada Life LifeAdvance and Desjardins Health Priorities are built the same standalone way, and we go through them in our review of critical illness insurance companies in Canada. Weighing this against income protection? See critical illness vs disability insurance.

Business Expense Insurance for Law Firm Partners and Sole Practitioners

Disability insurance replaces the income you would have received. Overhead insurance, on the other hand, covers the operating costs of your practice: employee salaries, rent, taxes, the bills that have to get paid. Lawyers Financial’s version is business expense insurance, up to $30,000 a month, for law firm partners and self-employed lawyers who are personally responsible for those costs.

Coverage can run to age 80, which matters if you plan to practise past 65. A separate key person option covers up to $12,000 a month for someone the practice depends on, which is a different tool from key person life insurance. Lawyers Financial notes the premiums may be tax-deductible; that one is a question for your accountant.

So the balance might be: disability coverage for your personal income replacement, and overhead insurance on the corporate side to cover your practice. It is also one more line where a second quote exists. Canada Life has an Overhead Expense Plan and iA builds overhead expense into its Superior Program, so price it both ways before you sign.

How Lawyers Financial Coverage Is Reviewed Before Anything Is Replaced

I don’t want to jump the gun on this. Before anything on a Lawyers Financial certificate is replaced, four things happen first: we get the paper, price it like for like, check your health before an application goes in, and keep the old coverage in force until the new one is approved. One lawyer’s file shows why that order matters.

In 2017 the comparison was easy, and I said so at the time. Then, before an individual policy was in force, a sleep apnea finding changed his medical file and the individual market closed to him for a year or two. The plan I had recommended replacing became the right answer. Both calls were correct on the day they were made.

The Four Things That Happen First

You can do the first step yourself today: pull your certificate and read how it defines total disability. If you would rather have it read against the rest of the market, that is what a policy review is for.

Underwriting practices differ by insurer and they change, and not every insurer takes anonymous pre-checks. The path gets set file by file.

When Lawyers Financial Is Enough and When to Add Individual Coverage

There are cases where it makes sense to remain with the group provider, and cases where it makes sense to add to it. Lawyers Financial may be the coverage to keep when your health has changed since you joined, and it can be enough for now when you are early in practice and your needs are still small. It stops being enough when you want a contract and premium nobody can change, more benefit than your certificate carries, or coverage that outlasts its windows.

Based on Lawyers Financial’s published terms and the carrier terms cited above. All of them change, and every outcome depends on underwriting.

The first row is not a consolation prize. I have suggested staying with a group plan where the client has a significant health history and the group plan is where they were able to get coverage at all. For everyone else the question is rarely Lawyers Financial or individual. It is how much of each, and you are allowed to hold both: see can you have more than one life insurance policy.

Lawyers Financial Insurance: Frequently Asked Questions

Short answers to the questions lawyers ask most about Lawyers Financial insurance. Each one is covered in more detail above.

How to Get Lawyers Financial Coverage Reviewed

Send your Lawyers Financial certificate and any firm benefits booklet, and a broker reads them against the individual market before anything changes. I’m a broker for my clients, not for one company, so staying with Lawyers Financial is one of the possible answers.