What should I ask about an illustration before I sign?
Ask five things. Run this again at a lower scale. Show me the guaranteed row at years five, ten and twenty. Which of these payments am I obliged to make and which are optional. What happens to this design if I stop the optional part in year four. And what would end this contract early. Written answers to those five change what the document means.
What kind of answer this is
- Claim type: Professional judgment
- Claim type: Contract fact
- Jurisdiction: Contract dependent
The five questions are the author's own working list. What each answer turns out to be is a contract fact particular to the design in front of you.
How it works
Each question changes one input and shows what moves. The lower scale run separates obligation from assumption. The guaranteed row gives the floor in dollars. The third separates the premium you owe from the deposit you choose. The fourth exposes how much rests on money you have not committed.
The cost or the catch
The fifth is the one that gets skipped and it matters most, because a contract ended in year six is where the real losses in this field are recorded. Asking it aloud also tells you something about the person answering. Anyone who cannot describe how the arrangement fails has not described it.
Where this answer may not apply
- A design with no optional deposit component has a shorter list, because the fourth question has no subject.
- Where a corporation is the owner, the same five are asked and then a second set is asked of an accountant before anything is signed.
- Underwriting may change the design after these answers are given, in which case the questions are worth asking a second time.
- None of this is a suitability finding, which is made on your own figures by a licensed representative.
What to verify in your own contract
- That every answer arrives in writing, on paper or by email, rather than only in conversation.
- The guaranteed cash value and guaranteed coverage figures quoted back to you, checked against the document itself.
- Which line of the payment schedule is the contractual premium and which line is a deposit you may stop.
- The reduced scale version, kept in the same file as the original.
Continue to the full explanation
Prepare the questions for a CPA, a lawyer and an insurance professional.
Sources
- The illustration assumptions page and the policy contract wording, insurer specific, verified 2026-08-30
- Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators, fair treatment of customers guidance, verified 2026-08-30
Accountability and disclosure
- Written by
- José Salloum
- Professional capacity
- Financial security advisor, Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc., operating as IBC Financial
- Reviewed by
- Insurance and contract education tier, reviewed under a licensed insurance professional's own authority
- Jurisdiction
- Contract dependent
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-30
- Version
- 1.0
- Compensation disclosure
- Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc., operating as IBC Financial, may receive insurer paid compensation if a policy is purchased. It takes the form of first year compensation followed by renewal compensation, and the amount varies by insurer, product, age, premium, contract design, riders and the arrangement with the managing general agency. No single figure would describe every contract honestly, and none is published here.
- Report a correction
- Info@ibcfinancial.com. Write without a policy number, medical information or account details.
Last reviewed 2026-08-30. By Jose Salloum, Financial Security Advisor.