Pot, assisted death new challenges for industry

Rapidly evolving technology isn’t the only big trend in the Canadian life insurance industry. The federal government is moving to legalize recreational marijuana within the next year and medically assisted dying is already here. Wendy Hope, vice president of external relations for the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA), says neither recreational pot nor medically assisted death will have any impact on the death benefit paid out by insurance companies. “If an individual already holds an insurance policy, the fact that they died with cannabis in their system would have no bearing on the death benefit being paid as set out in the policy,” she said. According to Hope, insurance companies are not expected to treat medically assisted deaths as suicides because these are now legal. Lawyer Michèle Pelletier, New Brunswick’s consumer advocate for insurance, agrees. “It’s going to be considered not as a suicide but as a medical procedure, so you will get the money from your life insurance company,” she said. Smoking or ingesting recreational cannabis products, though, might affect the amount Canadians will pay for their life insurance. In an interview, CLHIA vice president of underwriting and policy Brent Mizzen said he would need to check on the evidence of marijuana’s health impacts before being able to comment on whether recreational pot use might increase – or decrease – the premiums Canadians pay for life insurance. “The issue that applies is what the health impact will be of smoking marijuana,” he said.