Workplace group insurance: is it enough on its own?

What group coverage usually includes

Many employers in Canada offer a group benefits package: basic life insurance, extended health and dental coverage, and sometimes short- and long-term disability benefits. It is valuable coverage that starts automatically — but it is designed as a general package for a whole workforce, not around your family's mortgage, debts and expenses.

Gap 1: the amount

Group life insurance is commonly one to two times your annual salary. For a family with a mortgage and young children, essential expenses after the main earner passes away can run for ten years or more. A simple check: add up a year of essential spending — housing, food, insurance, transport, childcare — and multiply by the years your family would need support. Compare that with your group coverage.

Gap 2: it ends when the job ends

Group coverage belongs to the job, not to you. Change employers, lose the job, or retire, and the coverage usually stops. Some plans allow converting group life coverage to an individual policy without medical evidence within a short window, but the converted coverage and cost may differ from a policy you arrange yourself — and by then, health changes can make new individual coverage harder or more expensive to get.

Gap 3: what is missing entirely

Critical illness coverage is absent from most group plans, and disability benefits often come with waiting periods, benefit caps and definitions of disability that change after the first two years. Read the benefits booklet for three things: the life insurance multiple, the disability waiting period and benefit period, and what happens to each benefit when you leave.

The takeaway

Treat group insurance as a foundation, not the whole plan. Many families keep the group benefits and add a personal policy sized to their mortgage and income needs — personal coverage stays with you across jobs and into retirement planning. Our family protection checklist in the Resources section helps you run the numbers in one sitting.