Comparing PolicyMe to the Big Insurers: A Fair Look at Cost, Coverage & Convenience
See affordable life insurance quotes from PolicyMe and other top companies.
PolicyMe: What you should know
What is PolicyMe?
PolicyMe is a direct-to-consumer digital life insurance distributor or managing general agent (MGA) selling term and permanent life insurance products across Canada.
What we do: We design, price, sell, manage, and administer life insurance, health insurance, and critical illness insurance products to individuals and families across Canada.
Who we’re best for: Canadian families between the ages of 35 and 50 in need of life insurance to protect their children, and all Canadians in generally good health.
Who we’re not best for: Canadians over age 60 and anyone who’s hard to insure, such as individuals with chronic health conditions. Applicants in these groups are more likely to require a medical exam or additional documentation in order to qualify, and may see higher premiums based on their risk factors.
What sets us apart: PolicyMe operates like a traditional life insurance company in many ways: In collaboration with our partner Securian Canada, we design our products, set pricing, sell policies, provide expert guidance, process claim requests, and help customers resolve any technical or administrative difficulties. Here’s what we do differently from traditional insurers:
Our life insurance philosophy
Aka, Why we sell what we sell
We only sell insurance products because our focus is on providing cost-effective financial protection solutions to Canadian families.
Other major life insurance providers in Canada, such as Sun Life, Manulife, and Canada Life, aren’t just life insurance companies — they’re financial services companies, which means that they sell a wide range of financial services, such as investment accounts, retirement plans, and business solutions, in addition to their insurance products.
PolicyMe vs. Canadian insurance companies
If you’re investigating life insurance options from PolicyMe, you’re probably comparing other companies, including the “Big 5” life insurance providers in Canada and another digital innovator in the life insurance space.
We’ll go over each company below in more detail, but here’s a quick breakdown of what PolicyMe’s biggest competitors do:
PolicyMe vs. Sunlife
As a financial services company that also offers life insurance, Sun Life is better suited to clients in search of comprehensive financial planning, wealth management, annuities, and other financial services in addition to life insurance. It’s also a better pick for whole life insurance if you’re looking for a policy with a cash value component.
For most Canadian families, PolicyMe’s straightforward term life insurance offers better pricing and financial protection.
Sun Life is a major financial services company offering life insurance, health insurance, and investment products to customers across Canada. Founded in 1865, Sun Life is among Canada’s oldest and largest financial institutions.
Because it offers a wide range of financial services, including mutual funds, annuities, and RRSPS, Sun Life may be a better fit for those seeking life insurance as part of a complex financial planning strategy. However, it’s not ideal if you’re looking for straightforward, affordable life insurance coverage with a simple application process.
That’s because Sun Life works with a network of in-person insurance advisors and doesn’t issue most life insurance policies online. You can get life insurance quotes through Sun Life’s website and purchase up to $25,000 of guaranteed life insurance online, but for most products, Sun Life directs customers to connect with an in-person advisor in their area. Sun Life also offers a wide selection of riders and add-ons — an advantage if you’re in search of complex coverage with a flexible budget, but not ideal if your priority is timely, cost-effective protection.
PolicyMe is built for Canadians who want straightforward, affordable term life insurance without the complexity of traditional financial institutions. PolicyMe streamlines the entire experience with a fully digital application, instant decisions, and some of the most competitive pricing for families.
The table below breaks down the similarities and differences between PolicyMe and Sun Life’s term life insurance products.
* Average monthly premiums for a 20-year term life insurance policy with $500,000 in coverage for a 35-year-old non-smoking female living in Ontario. Sun Life sample premiums were obtained in November 2025.
PolicyMe vs. Emma
Emma is a life insurance comparison marketplace that also offers a range of services to parents in Canada, including a baby name finder and a guide to astrological signs.
PolicyMe sells its own life insurance product with end-to-end customer support from quoting to purchasing and policy management.
At first glance, PolicyMe and Emma seem like similar companies: both Canadian insurtech startups, both with a focus on affordable term life insurance for families. But on a closer look, reveals key differences between the two.
Emma focuses on life insurance for pregnant women and mothers — one of the hardest groups to insure in the life insurance industry — as reflected by its website, where customers can find baby name recommendations, astrology app rankings, and parenting advice alongside life insurance quotes.
PolicyMe serves a wider market. Rather than trying to target a narrow demographic, we focus on making life insurance affordable and accessible for the majority of Canadian families. And because we built our product with robust coverage for families in mind every PolicyMe life insurance policy comes with built-in benefits for families, at no added cost to parents.
The table below breaks down the similarities and differences between PolicyMe and Emma’s term life insurance products.
* Average monthly premiums for a 20-year term life insurance policy with $500,000 in coverage for a 35-year-old non-smoking female living in Ontario. Sample premiums for Emma were obtained from Emma.ca in November 2025.
PolicyMe vs. Manulife
If you’re familiar with life insurance products and want to pick and choose your options, Manulife may be a great fit. It’s Canada’s largest life insurer and offers a wide range of policies, riders, and customization features, including some tailored to families.
By contrast, PolicyMe focuses on straightforward term and permanent life insurance with preselected, no-cost riders, so the biggest decisions you need to make are how much coverage to carry and for how long. Because the product is simpler, so is the pricing; PolicyMe beats Manulife’s rates by around 12%.
Manulife, short for the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, is the largest life insurance company in Canada. But like Sun Life, Manulife is a far-reaching financial services company, offering clients products from group and individual life insurance to retirement tools, investment funds, wealth management services, small business solutions, and banking. In its 2024 annual report, Manulife reported it serves “... The needs of one in six adults overall across the country.”
Manulife’s broad scope of business means that its life insurance policies are backed by financial strength and considerable expertise. Manulife offers 15+ life insurance options, each with a range of optional riders, coverage amounts, rewards programs, and other customization features. For those with a clear vision of their insurance needs, this may be a great thing — for others, it could lead to buying more insurance than they need.
The table below breaks down the similarities and differences between PolicyMe and Manulife’s term life insurance products.
* Average monthly premiums for a 20-year term life insurance policy with $500,000 in coverage for a 35-year-old non-smoking female living in Ontario. Manulife sample premiums were obtained in November 2025.
PolicyMe vs. Canada Life
Canada Life is a major life insurance provider with a presence in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Ireland. Its life insurance products are pricier than PolicyMe’s and may be better suited to business owners and high-income clients.
Headquartered in Winnipeg, Canada Life is a financial services company created in 2020 by the merger of three life insurance companies: Great-West Life Assurance Company, London Life Insurance, and The Canada Life Assurance Company. But Canada Life has been providing financial services to Canadians since the 1840s.
Insurance is just a small portion of what Canada Life offers, alongside investment products, retirement solutions, and financial services for large and small business owners. Canada Life’s life insurance products, which include a basic term life policy with available riders, universal life insurance, and participating life insurance, may appeal most to high-income clients and business owners looking for life insurance that can help them build and manage their wealth.
The table below breaks down the similarities and differences between PolicyMe and Canada Life’s term life insurance products.
* Average monthly premiums for a 20-year term life insurance policy with $500,000 in coverage for a 35-year-old non-smoking female living in Ontario.
PolicyMe vs. RBC Insurance
RBC Insurance, or Royal Bank of Canada Insurance, is a major bank-backed insurer that offers competitively priced term life insurance, participating whole life insurance, and guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance. It offers similar benefits to PolicyMe, such as quick online applications and low premiums, but lacks key benefits for families, such as child coverage and family discounts.
The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is Canada’s largest bank. It’s also a multinational financial services corporation with 18M+ clients worldwide and branches in 36 countries.
But despite the differences in the two companies, RBC’s life insurance products are actually closer to PolicyMe’s offerings than most major life insurers. For example, RBC’s Simplified® Term Life policy is available with no medical exam for most applicants in good health, and you can complete an online application in under 20 minutes. RBC’s pricing is also competitive, with rates close to PolicyMe’s for most applicants.
If you’re looking for straightforward, low-cost term life insurance with minimal hassle, either RBC or PolicyMe could have the right policy for you. But PolicyMe does have a couple of advantages that RBC doesn’t offer. While RBC’s Simplified Term Life cuts off at just $1M in coverage, PolicyMe offers instant approval on up to $2M in coverage for applicants below age 50 with no pre-existing conditions. And PolicyMe includes multiple family benefits on all policies for free, while RBC reserves features like child coverage as optional riders that come with added premiums.
The table below breaks down the similarities and differences between PolicyMe and RBC’s term life insurance products.
* Average monthly premiums for a 20-year term life insurance policy with $500,000 in coverage for a 35-year-old non-smoking female living in Ontario. RBC sample premiums were obtained in November 2025.
PolicyMe vs. Desjardins
Desjardins focuses heavily on Québec and Ontario and sells life insurance only through its network of local agents.
If you’re outside of Desjardins’ preferred geographic market or want to be less reliant on advisors, PolicyMe’s online, customer-driven application process might be a better fit.
The Desjardins Group is an association of Canadian credit unions based in Québec. Through its subsidiaries, Desjardins has a hand in a range of business enterprises, from banking and real estate to credit cards, wealth management, and over 10 types of personal insurance. Desjardins offers five life insurance products, including term, participating, and universal life insurance.
The biggest difference between PolicyMe and Desjardins is the latter’s reliance on in-person agents. Because the Desjardins agent network is based heavily in Québec and Ontario, customers seeking life insurance outside those two provinces may have trouble connecting with an advisor — which is the only way to purchase life insurance from Desjardins.
The table below breaks down the similarities and differences between PolicyMe and Desjardins’ term life insurance products.
* Average monthly premiums for a 20-year term life insurance policy with $500,000 in coverage for a 35-year-old non-smoking female living in Ontario. Desjardins sample premiums were obtained in November 2025.
How to find the right life insurance company for you
Life insurance may feel like a complicated product, but it’s actually pretty simple. A life insurance policy should provide a death benefit large enough to meet your family’s needs in the event of your death — and no more than that. And it should do so at the best price available on the market.
Financial strength and customer support still matter. They’re good markers of how reliable a company is and how much it invests in providing expert, compassionate human support to its customers. But because life insurance policies don’t require much upkeep — unlike auto, home, or health insurance, you’re not likely to make frequent policy changes or file regular claims — the buying process matters more for life insurance.
If you’ve never shopped for life insurance before, keep these basic strategies in mind when choosing the company you’d like to work with.
1. Life insurance should be matched to your actual needs
The most important part of the life insurance purchasing process is calculating your family’s coverage needs. Buy too much coverage, and you’re losing money unnecessarily; too little, and your family could struggle financially.
PolicyMe has a free online life insurance calculator that shows three coverage levels — a budget-friendly option, a “just right” option, and a robust option — based on a basic analysis of your finances. If you want more support, you can speak with one of our licensed advisors M-F, 9AM-5PM EST at +1 (866) 999-7457.
2. Maximize value for money
Your goal in buying life insurance should be to pay as little as possible for the right coverage. But the lowest price on the market may not come with the best coverage for your family.
PolicyMe’s pricing strategy uses direct-to-consumer sales to deliver some of the lowest prices in the industry for term life insurance. If you do find a cheaper quote, consider whether the coverage offered includes the built-in value PolicyMe offers to families, such as $10K of free child term coverage and a 10% first-year discount for couples who apply together. If those benefits matter to you, they may make a policy that costs a few dollars more per month more cost-effective in the long run.
At the same time, weigh the value of optional riders very carefully. While they do offer attractive perks, they will add to the cost of your policy and may not be worth the higher premium in the long run.
3. Focus on the product, not on the company
Many of Canada’s biggest life insurance providers — Sun Life, Manulife, and Canada Life — carry decades of industry trust and a positive reputation in the Canadian financial services space.
But a company’s overall reputation doesn’t determine whether its life insurance products are right for your family. Each individual product — e.g. PolicyMe’s Term Life Insurance, Sun Life’s Evolved Term, or RBC’s YourTerm® — comes with different pricing, terms and conditions, included benefits, optional benefits, underwriting processes, and more.
When evaluating life insurance products, ask questions like:
- Will I need to take a medical exam in order to buy this product?
- If this product offers accelerated underwriting, will I qualify based on my health conditions?
- Do I need to schedule a phone call with an advisor to buy this product?
- Does this product have coverage caps — and do they include the amount of coverage my family needs?
- Does this policy come with included benefits like child coverage or convertibility, or will I be charged extra for these options?
- Does the quoted premium fit my family’s current budget?
FAQ: PolicyMe vs. the big life insurance companies
Helene Fleischer is Content Marketing Manager at PolicyMe, with 9 years in content marketing and 4 in Canada’s insurance industry. She works with skilled writers and licensed insurance advisors to create useful resources that help Canadians navigate insurance decisions with confidence and clarity.
Helene Fleischer is Content Marketing Manager at PolicyMe, with 9 years in content marketing and 4 in Canada’s insurance industry. She works with skilled writers and licensed insurance advisors to create useful resources that help Canadians navigate insurance decisions with confidence and clarity.