Cheap Life Insurance for Canadians: Explore Your Options
See affordable life insurance quotes from PolicyMe and other top companies.
How to find cheap life insurance in Canada
The cheapest type of life insurance in Canada is term life insurance. It’s designed as a low-cost way for families to provide for their loved ones, cover final expenses, and ensure financial stability for dependents in the event of an unexpected death.
You can lower costs further by:
- Opting for a life insurance company with full underwriting: While no medical exam life insurance may be convenient, healthy adults can get a lower price by completing a medical questionnaire or exam
- Reviewing your coverage needs with a licensed advisor: It’s easy to overshop for life insurance, so make sure you’re buying a plan that actually matches your loved ones’ financial needs
- Buy early: Term life insurance premiums are fixed, so purchasing a plan at a young age can lock in low rates for decades
Three main types of life insurance
Canadians can generally choose between three basic types of life insurance: term, whole, and universal. Term life insurance is the cheapest option by a significant margin and offers the best fit for most families’ coverage needs.
Only consider whole or universal life insurance policies if you have complex estate planning needs, have maxed out your retirement savings options, and are working with a large budget for life insurance.
Best cheap term life insurance plans in Canada
Inexpensive term life insurance starts around $10/month for adults in their 30s and early 40s — the primary target market for life insurance. We compared life insurance quotes from dozens of providers and found eight life insurance companies that ranked 4 stars or higher in our analysis with term life insurance rates $10/month or lower.
* For each product, we calculated the average monthly premiums for a female non-smoker between 30-44. The results show the approximate cost of a 10-year term life insurance policy with $100,000 in coverage.
How are life insurance premiums calculated?
Insurance premiums are calculated during the underwriting stage of the life insurance process, when a company assesses how likely and how soon you might pass away. The most important factors are your:
- Age
- Height and weight
- Lifestyle (including alcohol and tobacco use)
- Location
- Medical history (including any pre-existing medical conditions)
- Occupation (including work and hobbies)
- Sex at birth
The higher the risk indicated by this information, the higher your insurance premiums. For example, life insurance costs much more for a middle-aged male who likes to drink and base-jump than for a young female student still living at home.
Plus, insurance providers can charge different prices for the same coverage, so comparing quotes could save you money.
9 ways to lower your life insurance premiums
After consulting with PolicyMe’s licensed life insurance advisors, we created a list of 9 ways to find cheap life insurance in Canada:
Tip #1: Apply early
The average term life insurance premiums cost just $10 per month for an 18-year-old and $163 per month for a 70-year-old. Because term life insurance premiums stay the same across your entire policy term, buying early means you’ll enjoy a low price even as you age. The sooner you apply, the more you’ll save.
Tip #2: Choose term life insurance
Compared to term life insurance, permanent life insurance (which includes term 100 life insurance, whole life, and universal life insurance) is more expensive and grants less coverage. One of the other advantages of term life insurance is that you can shop for new rates and adjust your coverage once your term expires, instead of ending up with coverage that exceeds your financial needs.
Car loans, credit card debt, and tuition fees for your children’s education don’t last forever, so why should your life insurance? A 20-year term life insurance policy can provide your dependents with a higher amount of coverage at a more affordable price.
Tip #3: Choose fully underwritten life insurance
Life insurance companies use underwriting to figure out how likely and how soon you might pass away, and to set your premiums accordingly. The more thorough the underwriting, the more complete the picture of your health, and the lower your life insurance premiums are likely to be.
For example, fully underwritten life insurance sometimes requires an in-person medical exam, but it’s 72% — 171% cheaper than no medical life insurance, which bases premiums for all applicants on an assumption of high risk. Try applying for fully underwritten life insurance first to see how much you could save; you can always apply for a no medical policy later.
Tip #4: Choose lower coverage
The larger the death benefit you plan to leave behind, the more you’ll pay. Instead of simply multiplying your income, it’s worth figuring out exactly how much coverage you need by using a life insurance calculator.
For example, a 10-year term life insurance plan for $100,000 from PolicyMe starts at just $6.29 per month for an 18-year-old applicant. Increasing the amount of coverage to $200,000 raises your premiums to $9.17 per month. It’s not quite double, but it’s still nearly 30% more.
With a little effort, you can figure out exactly how much financial protection you need and keep your life insurance costs as low as possible.
Term life insurance, which lasts for 10–30 years, lets you change your coverage amount once your policy expires. With permanent life insurance, you’re locked into high rates, and you’ll probably end up over- or undershooting your insurance needs at some point in your life.
Tip #5: Don’t smoke
On average, the life insurance premiums for smokers are 70% higher than those for non-smokers. The gap gets wider with age; a 70-year-old smoker will pay about 88% more per month than their non-smoking counterpart, while an 18-year-old smoker will only pay 25% more.
The increase in premiums applies to vaping, chewing tobacco, betel nut leaves, cigars, and any other use of tobacco within the last 12 months. If you do consume nicotine, it’s crucial to find a company with competitive life insurance rates for smokers.
Depending on the insurance provider, using marijuana may raise your life insurance rates.
Tip #6: Evaluate your risk
Life insurance companies use underwriting to figure out how likely and how soon you might pass away, and the higher your risk, the higher your premiums. Anyone with a pre-existing medical condition, a dangerous hobby, or a difficult occupation may qualify for high-risk life insurance instead of regular rates.
If you’ve done the hard work to improve your health, call up your insurer and tell them about your progress. Most companies are happy to review your life insurance premiums after a significant change in circumstances.
Tip #7: Find a bundling discount
A single life insurance policy that insures the lives of two or more people is known as joint life insurance. Although it’s generally cheaper than buying a pair of individual policies, a joint life insurance policy only leads to a single payout.
By buying two policies, you can set different amounts of life insurance coverage for your spouse and yourself, and secure your loved ones’ financial security with two payouts. Plus, you’ll qualify for a couple’s life insurance discount.
Tip #8: Find the right life insurance company
Different life insurance companies set different premiums, even for the same customers. Comparing prices is the most reliable way to find a deal, and most companies offer online, no-obligation quotes.
Tip #9: Avoid optional riders
Every additional coverage option adds to your life insurance premiums, and most are just plain unnecessary.
For example, the majority of Canadian term life insurance policies are convertible and renewable with no further proof of insurability. You shouldn’t have to pay extra to guarantee your eligibility for permanent coverage. Similarly, by promising to double your beneficiaries’ payout in the event of an accident, accidental death riders are really just asking you to gamble.
We generally recommend saving your money instead.
PolicyMe includes $10,000 of free coverage per child with every life insurance policy.
Methodology
About the data
PolicyMe’s rankings are based on an independent, data-driven review of Canada’s best life insurance products and providers. Our analysis combines 450,000+ quotes for 95+ policies and 25+ insurers, drawing on trusted sources such as COMPULIFE, WinQuote and official provider websites, supplemented by ratings from Google.
About star ratings
Each product received a star rating out of five based on pricing, customer satisfaction and ease of purchase, customized by age group, sex at birth, and smoking status. We awarded three stars to every provider with insolvency protection from Assuris and a financial stability rating of “A-” or higher from a respected credit rating agency such as A.M. Best.
Products with an average price at least 5% below the industry average received one extra star for affordability, while providers with a Google Reviews score of 4.0 or higher earned an extra half-star for customer satisfaction. Finally, products offering convenient online quoting options earned another half-star for accessibility.
About the categories
Our “Best Of” categories use criteria reflecting the most popular types of coverage and buyer needs. Most term life insurance categories compare the average price of a 10-30-year policy with $600,000 in coverage for non-smoking women between the ages of 30-44. The “best of” categories for smokers and seniors compare policies for smoking women and 60-year-old women, respectively.
Most senior customers purchase a smaller amount of permanent and no medical coverage because it’s expensive, and they require coverage for end-of-life expenses rather than debt or income replacement. We therefore capped coverage for the best no medical term life insurance category at $50,000, and coverage for all the best permanent life insurance categories at $25,000.
About rankings
The rankings within each category are determined first by star rating and then by average monthly premiums by age group, sex at birth and smoking status.
About pricing comparisons
To ensure fairness and accuracy, we made all pricing comparisons between products of the same type, with the same coverage amount, and for the same combination of age group, sex at birth and smoking status. The rates listed in this article are based on publicly available rates as of July 2026.
For example, the cost of a 10-year term policy for non-smoking women aged 18-29 with $400,000 in coverage is always compared to the industry average for all 10-year term policies for the same demographic segment and with the same amount of coverage.
Similarly, the average cost of a fully underwritten permanent life insurance policy for non-smoking women aged 30-44 with $75,000 in coverage is always compared to the industry average for all fully underwritten permanent policies for the same demographic segment and with the same amount of coverage.
Disclaimer
PolicyMe’s findings use unaltered data and are free from paid placements or sponsored influence. While we strive to keep our information up-to-date, we cannot guarantee the validity of third-party data. These results are intended as a helpful reference and not as a substitute for personalized financial advice.
FAQ: Affordable life insurance
R.E. specializes in making insurance accessible through clear, actionable content backed by data and created for ordinary Canadians. They have 10 years of experience in digital content creation, including 4 years of focused work in the insurance space. A published author with a background in finance journalism, R.E. earned a personal lines insurance license in 2024 to expand their ability to break down complex insurance topics for the consumers who need most to understand them.
- 10 years of experience
- Expertise: life insurance, health and dental insurance, auto insurance, home insurance, personal finance, finance journalism
- Education: Bachelor of Science, Clarkson University; Master of Arts, University of Rochester
R.E. specializes in making insurance accessible through clear, actionable content backed by data and created for ordinary Canadians. They have 10 years of experience in digital content creation, including 4 years of focused work in the insurance space. A published author with a background in finance journalism, R.E. earned a personal lines insurance license in 2024 to expand their ability to break down complex insurance topics for the consumers who need most to understand them.
- 10 years of experience
- Expertise: life insurance, health and dental insurance, auto insurance, home insurance, personal finance, finance journalism
- Education: Bachelor of Science, Clarkson University; Master of Arts, University of Rochester