RBC Insurance review

RBC Insurance sells directly (online and by phone) and is most convenient if you already bank with RBC. Two things to know: it’s not available in BC, Manitoba or Saskatchewan, and its home and auto policies are actually underwritten by Aviva.

Yes — RBC Insurance sells home insurance as well as car (plus other lines like life and travel), so you can put both on one account and take the multi-policy discount. Bundling home and auto is usually one of the biggest savings a Canadian insurer offers, so it’s worth asking for a combined quote.

RBC Insurance offers Aviva telematics (via underwriter) (bundling up to 15% + depreciation waiver). It uses an app or device to measure how you actually drive. If you’re a calm, mostly-daytime driver it can meaningfully cut your premium; if you brake hard, drive late at night or rack up long distances, the savings shrink. Turn it on if your driving genuinely reflects low risk.

It depends which policy you're buying — and that distinction matters. RBC Insurance's lines are underwritten by separate legal entities that carry their own ratings: car insurance — no current verified rating; home insurance — no current verified rating; life insurance — A (Excellent) from AM Best; travel insurance — no current verified rating. We show each line's own rating rather than applying one arm's grade to the whole group, because a strong rating on one entity says nothing about another.

RBC Insurance stands out for RBC banking clients who bundle. Convenient for existing RBC banking customers, and bundling discounts up to 15% plus a 2-year waiver of depreciation on new cars. If those things matter most to you, it’s worth a close look; if your priority is something else, compare it against the insurers that rate highest on that pillar.

The watch-outs we found: auto is underwritten by Aviva, whose Canadian AM Best rating was withdrawn in 2021 — no current financial-strength rating; not available in BC, MB or SK. We spell these out so you can weigh them before buying — every insurer has trade-offs, and knowing them upfront is the point of a real review.

RBC Insurance ranks #10 of the 10 insurers we scored, at 73/100. It’s strongest on value & savings and has the most room to improve on customer satisfaction. The highest-scoring insurer in our ratings is Intact Insurance (86.2/100).

Because it is the dividing line between RBC's two term products. RBC Simplified Term covers $50,000 up to $1,000,000 with a quick online application and no medical exam for eligible applicants. YourTerm picks up at $1,000,001 and runs to $25,000,000 with full underwriting. The odd starting figure is simply the boundary that prevents overlap. Practically: if you want $1,000,000 or less and want to skip the exam, you are in Simplified Term; if you need more, or you are healthy and want the better rate, you go through YourTerm's underwriting.

Yes, and this is unusually generous for a simplified-issue product. RBC Simplified Term converts to RBC Universal Life without additional medical evidence. Most no-medical term products in Canada are dead ends — when the term ends you re-apply and re-disclose your health. Here you can lock in permanent coverage at your original classification even if your health has deteriorated. Confirm the conversion deadline in your specific contract, since RBC's fully underwritten YourTerm converts to permanent to age 70 and the simplified product may carry its own window.

Try everything else first. Guaranteed Acceptance covers $5,000 to $40,000 for ages 40 to 75 with no medical exam and no health questions, which makes it the last resort rather than the default. Because RBC cannot assess the risk, the cost per dollar of coverage is the highest in its lineup and the face amount caps out where a funeral and estate cleanup roughly end. If you can answer health questions and qualify for RBC Simplified Term, you get up to $1,000,000 for far less per dollar. Guaranteed Acceptance is for genuine declines.

The premium is the same — RBC files one rate for a given product, age and health class regardless of channel. What differs is the comparison you get. A Royal Bank branch or an RBC advisor sells you RBC products only, so you never see whether Manulife, Sun Life, Canada Life or iA would rate your health profile better. An independent broker runs the same application across multiple carriers. Given that RBC prices well on YourTerm, it may still win — but knowing that requires seeing the alternatives, which the branch channel cannot show you.

Timing of cash-value access, mostly. RBC Growth Insurance covers $25,000 to $25,000,000 with cash value becoming available after year five. Growth Insurance Plus requires a larger minimum of $250,000, goes to the same $25,000,000 ceiling, and delivers accelerated cash-value growth with access as early as year one. If the policy is a personal legacy plan you will never borrow against, the standard version and its lower minimum is fine. If it is corporate-owned or you intend to use the cash value as collateral, the Plus version's early liquidity is the reason to pay the higher entry point.

On its travel medical plans, yes — the TravelCare package benefit schedule lists Emergency Travel Medical Coverage as Unlimited, and the Travel HealthProtector certificate lists Emergency Medical Treatment the same way. There is one large asterisk: the insurance is subject to a maximum of $20,000 if you do not have valid government health insurance plan coverage at the time of claim. So unlimited is conditional on your provincial health plan being in force for the entire trip. For long-stay snowbirds who exceed their province's out-of-province allowance, that condition is the one that matters.

Chiefly the pre-existing condition stability period, and it is the clearest illustration in Canada of what that term is worth. Gold excludes conditions not stable in the 90 days before departure. Silver extends that to 180 days. Bronze extends it to 365 days. Each tier applies the same window to its heart test (including nitroglycerine taken more than once a week for angina) and its lung test (home oxygen or prescribed oral steroids). If you have had any change in treatment, medication or symptoms in the past year, Bronze is likely to exclude the very condition you are insuring against, and the Gold premium is what buying that risk back costs.

For some products, yes. RBC states that any Canadian resident can purchase some form of coverage, but the TravelCare package's eligibility section specifically requires you to be a client of the RBC Companies, or the spouse or child of a client. Other plans, including Travel HealthProtector, are written around Canadian residency and government health plan coverage rather than banking relationship. If you are not an RBC client, check which product you are actually being quoted before you buy — an eligibility failure voids the coverage and leaves you with a premium refund and an unpaid hospital bill.

On the Travel HealthProtector certificate the penalty is explicit: if you do not call before obtaining emergency treatment, you are responsible for 30% of your medical expenses covered under the insurance. That is the steepest stated co-insurance penalty among the five providers here — Manulife CoverMe charges 20% for the same failure. The policy does allow for someone to call on your behalf as soon as possible if it is medically impossible for you to call first, which is why the assistance number should be with a travelling companion, not only in your own phone.

It varies sharply by product and by age, and the limits are easy to trip over. Travel HealthProtector Single Trip Plans allow up to 183 days. The TravelCare package caps single trips at 60 days. On multi-trip annual plans, per-trip lengths are 9, 15, 30 or 60 consecutive days — and critically, the 30-day and 60-day options are available only to persons under 80 years of age, so an 80-year-old on an annual plan is limited to 15 days per trip. The Classic Medical multi-trip annual plan is restricted to travellers under 65 entirely. Exceeding your per-trip limit without topping up first voids the claim for the whole trip.