For Dentists: Ten Articles From the First Year to the Sale of the Practice
Ten articles written for dentists in Canada, set out in the order a dental career unfolds: the first years with student debt, buying a practice, equipment and leasehold improvements, the professional corporation, the household, disability, the sale of the practice and retirement. Each one stands alone, so a dentist can start with the stage they are living now.
Starting out
The first years: student debt, the first insurance decisions, and how a financing plan can follow a whole career.
What should a new dentist in Canada do first about student debt, insurance and financing? NEW
A practical order for Canadian dental graduates: manage student debt, protect income, build reserves, then consider a financing system when cash flow allows.
Read the articleHow can a Canadian dentist put the financing concept of Nelson Nash to work across a career? NEW
A Canadian dentist's financing needs from student debt to retirement: practice purchases, equipment, policy loans, disability protection and tax cautions.
Read the articleOwning and growing the practice
Buying in, replacing equipment, fitting out a space or a second location, and what the professional corporation changes.
How should a dentist finance the move from associate to practice owner in Canada? NEW
Buying a dental practice in Canada: acquisition loans, down payments, a first-year cash reserve and what a policy loan can and cannot do in the purchase year.
Read the articleDentists and the Equipment Cycle: Who Is Paid Every Time UPDATED
A dental practice replaces the same equipment several times over a career and finances it every time. Where that interest goes, and who else could receive it.
Read the articleHow should a dentist plan for leasehold improvements, a lease renewal and a second location? NEW
Plan dental renovations and a second clinic around lease rights, construction cash and slower production. See where policy financing may fit, and its risks.
Read the articleWhat should an incorporated dentist know about retained earnings and whole life insurance? NEW
Dental professional corporations in Canada: retained earnings, the passive income rule, corporate policy loans, the capital dividend account and the risks.
Read the articleProtecting the household
When a spouse works in the practice or both spouses are dentists, and what happens if the dentist cannot work.
What should dentists consider when a spouse works in the practice or both spouses are dentists? NEW
A Canadian guide to paying a spouse, planning one or two dental practices and choosing policy ownership, with the tax, financing and separation risks.
Read the articleWhat happens to a dental practice and its financing plan when the dentist cannot work? NEW
If a Canadian dentist cannot work, practice bills and loan payments continue. See how disability coverage, overhead protection and a cash reserve fit together.
Read the articleLeaving the practice
Selling the practice, and building retirement income without an employer pension.
What should a dentist know before selling a dental practice in Canada? NEW
Selling a dental practice in Canada: what buyers assess, asset or share sale, what happens to a whole life policy and the limits of a policy loan.
Read the articleHow can a Canadian dentist plan retirement income without an employer pension? NEW
A retirement guide for Canadian dentists without a pension: registered plans, the practice sale, corporate savings, policy loans, tax rules and their risks.
Read the articleWhere should a dentist start?
Start with the stage you are living now. The ten articles below follow a dental career from the first years with student debt to the sale of the practice and retirement. Each one stands on its own, so you can read one without the others. If you already know your question, the table further down sends you straight to the article that answers it.
The articles explain one tool, participating whole life insurance, and the way some professionals use its cash value as a source of capital through policy loans from the insurer. The policy is life insurance first; it is not a savings account or an investment. A policy loan is an advance the insurer makes against the cash value. The interest is owed to the insurer, at a rate the insurer sets and may change, and a loan still outstanding at death is deducted, with its interest, from the death benefit paid.
The articles also say when that tool does not fit. It does not suit a household still carrying expensive debt, or cash flow that cannot fund a policy steadily for many years. Nor does it suit a need for the money within a few years, before the cash value has had time to build. Do not buy a policy to pay for a purchase you are planning in the next few years.
If retirement is your question, begin with the retirement calculator. It estimates what the retirement lifestyle you want could cost each year from 65 to 95, before any product is mentioned.
Which article answers which question?
Find the row that matches where you are in your career and the question on your mind. In real life the stages overlap: an incorporated dentist opening a second location may want three of these articles at once.
| Stage of a dental career | The question you are asking | The article to read |
|---|---|---|
| Graduation and the first years as an associate | I have student debt. What comes first: the debt, insurance or a financing plan? | New dentists: student debt and what to do first |
| Any stage, seen as a whole | How could policy loans fit across a whole dental career, and where would they not? | Financing a dental career |
| From associate to owner | How do I finance the purchase, and what can a policy loan do in the purchase year? | Buying a practice |
| Running the practice | The same equipment is replaced and financed again and again. Who is paid each time? | The equipment cycle |
| Renovating or expanding | How do I plan a fit-out, a lease renewal or a second location? | Leasehold improvements and a second location |
| Incorporated, with retained earnings | What should I know about retained earnings, the passive income rule and a corporate policy? | The professional corporation and retained earnings |
| Building a household | My spouse works in the practice, or we are both dentists. What should we look at? | Spouse and two-dentist households |
| Unable to work | What happens to the practice and its loans if I cannot work? | Disability and the capital plan |
| Preparing to sell | What do buyers assess, and what happens to a policy when the practice is sold? | Selling the practice |
| Retirement | How do I build retirement income without an employer pension? | A retirement plan for dentists |
The articles on the business side of the practice, from the purchase to the sale, belong to the wider business owners section. It covers corporate ownership of a policy, the capital dividend account and the passive income rule for any incorporated owner.
What should you ask before you act?
Tax and corporate questions belong with your accountant and your lawyer (in Quebec, a lawyer or a notary). Every policy is also subject to the insurer's underwriting: the insurer decides whether to offer coverage, and on what terms. Bring these questions to your first meeting with each of them, and ask for the answers in writing.
For your accountant and your lawyer
- Who would own the policy, pay the premiums and be named beneficiary: you personally, your professional corporation or a holding company? What does each choice change for tax, for a future sale of the practice and for your estate? There is no general answer.
- How do the small business deduction and its business limit apply to your corporation this year? How does the passive income rule apply? In Quebec, does the corporation meet the condition on paid hours for the provincial small business deduction?
- Do the provincial rules for dental professional corporations, or the rules of your dental regulator, limit what the corporation may own?
- If you used a policy loan in the practice, could the interest be deducted? What would the insurer have to verify on Form T2210, and in Quebec on form TP-163.1-V?
- If the policy were surrendered, or ended with a loan outstanding, how would any taxable amount be calculated from the adjusted cost basis? Quebec residents also file with Revenu Québec.
For the insurer, through a licensed representative
- An illustration that shows the guaranteed values in their own column, apart from the values that depend on dividends. Ask for a second version at a lower dividend scale too.
- The year, if any, in which the guaranteed cash value first exceeds the total premiums paid.
- The loan provision: how the interest rate is set, how and when it can change, and what happens as the loan balance approaches the cash value.
- How a loan affects the death benefit and, depending on the contract, the dividends.
- The names of the owner, the person insured and the beneficiary, exactly as the application will show them.
We are paid by commissions from the insurers whose policies we arrange, and we say so before anything is signed. Ask any advisor you meet how they are paid. We are not a bank. Dividends are not guaranteed: the insurer decides each year what it pays.
If you would like to talk about your own situation, the 30-minute discovery meeting page explains what a first conversation is and what it is not.
Where are the collections for other professions?
Physicians, pharmacists and other professionals face the same kinds of questions with a different practice behind them. Each group has its own collection.
A thirty-minute discovery meeting
A first conversation establishes whether this fits. No illustration is prepared and nothing is arranged.
Often the answer is no, and you will hear it during the call rather than in a proposal afterwards.
This form reaches Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc. Any meeting, any advice and any insurance product is provided by Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc., through its representatives who are licensed in the client's province. IBC Financial is the company's educational website: it distributes no product and no financial service, and it gives no individualised advice.
Common questions
Why does retirement need more attention for a dentist with no employer pension?
What does participating whole life insurance have to do with retirement?
What does this approach cost, and what are its risks?
What happens if I ask for a conversation?
Can a dental professional corporation own a life insurance policy?
What does a policy loan cost a dentist?
How long before the cash value of a policy is useful to a dentist?
Last reviewed 2026-10-01.