INSURANCE SYMPOSIUM
A compendium of articles on insurance planning and design

The INSURANCE SYMPOSIUM publication comprises a total of more than 30,000 words. The material has been edited in book format (paper bound) with a table of contents. It constitutes a ready reference tool for insurance and tax professionals as well as a source of original tax and financial planning ideas.

To purchase, please contact Federated Press.

What Is the Insurance Symposium?

INSURANCE SYMPOSIUM is a series of specially-commissioned articles on the use of different forms of insurance in compensation and retirement planning. These articles, which were contributed by leading Canadian specialists, first appeared in Taxation of Executive Compensation and Retirement (TECR), Canada's authoritative source for personal tax planning expertise.

The Insurance Symposium articles have been supplemented by other current recent articles. These articles – all from recent issues of TECR – complement the symposium articles to ensure complete coverage, well-documented analysis and thorough, detailed suggestions on insurance design and planning.

Insurance Symposium Contributors

The editor-in-chief of the INSURANCE SYMPOSIUM is William E. Crawford, FCA, of Ernst & Young. A graduate of Cambridge University, Mr. Crawford is one of Canada's foremost authorities on personal tax and estate planning. He has published widely and is a former governor of the Canadian Tax Foundation and a past chairman of the Toronto Estate Planning Council.

Contributors to the INSURANCE SYMPOSIUM are:
Bruce Chegus, The Great West-Life Assurance Co.
Peter H. Harris, McCarthy Tétrault
Barbara Lawrie, Aird & Berlis
Kirsten Richter, Ernst & Young
Glen R. Stephens, Mills & Mills
William Strain, PPI Financial Group (Eastern) Ltd.
Paul Timmins, The Wyatt Company
Janice Walsh, Manulife Financial
Kevin C. Wark, Manulife Financial
Jillian Welch, McCarthy Tétrault

Supplemental material was contributed by the following authors:
Claude Boulanger, Towers Perrin
Bill Holmes, Thorsteinsson, Mitchell, Little
Andrew H. Kingissepp, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt
Julie Y. Lee, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt
Dean Summerville, Coopers & Lybrand

Each symposium organized by Federated Press is produced by a board of contributors consisting of an editor-in-chief and six to eight other editors. Editors-in-chief are practitioners who are among the most consulted authorities in their fields.

Editors-in-chief are selected as a result of a three-step process:

• Interviews with specialists in the field are conducted by Federated Press Editorial Department.
• The candidate's publications (books, articles, conference or seminar participation, legal education, etc.) are examined.
• Academic degrees and honours, references, or involvement in professional affairs are verified.

As the architect of the symposium papers, the editor-in-chief enjoys some influence in the selection of contributors. The editor-in-chief submits a list of candidates to the Federated Press editorial department which reviews the proposals. The final list of candidates is submitted to external examiners who may request further changes.

Symposium Topics

Some of the topics covered by the Symposium:

Benefits from term life policies
Directors' and officers' liability insurance
Disability insurance
Effect of sales taxes on employee insurance benefits
Funding supplemental pension plans
Indemnity payment as tax-free receipt
Insurance-funded corporate share redemptions
Life insurance in estate planning
Life insurance as RRSP investment
Planned giving programs
Prefunding of retirement coverage
Protection from creditors
Retirement vehicles as contracts of insurance
Revenue Canada positions on life insurance
Structuring disability/death compensation
Taxation of life insurance policies
Unfunded benefit plans

Symposium Titles

Some of the titles of articles published in the Symposium:

Director's liability insurance premiums may result in taxable benefit
Computing benefits from term life policies
Tax primer on life insurance policies (Richter)
Recent Revenue Canada policies concerning life insurance
Helping charity through use of insurance produces (Wark and Walsh)
Using life insurance to accomplish estate planning objectives (Stephens)
Recent bankruptcy cases highlight need to shelter life insurance assets (Lawrie)
Taxation of employer-sponsored disability plans: current practice (Chegus)
Ontario and Quebec taxation of employee benefits (Timmins)
Life-insured share redemption provides advantages over outright buyback (Strain)
Using life insurance policies to fund pension plans (Harris and Welch)
Canadian officers and directors can treat indemnity payment as tax-free receipt (Kingissepp)

Which Issues Are Addressed?

Some significant articles from the Symposium:

TECR IV;1:774 (Lawrie)
Do life insurance plans remain beyond the reach of creditors? Recent cases in bankruptcy cast doubt on this common belief.

TECR V;1:792 (Chegus)
Premiums paid for individual disability plans generally give rise to tax up front. Immediate taxation can be avoided if the employer is the plan beneficiary. The proceeds then may be used to fund continuation of the employee's salary.

TECR V;3:819 (Harris and Welch)
Structuring RPPs and RRSPs as a contract of insurance will make it possible for plans to benefit from increased levels of foreign investment while offering greater protection from creditors and reduced administration.

Back to Federated Press Books and Conference Reports