For high-net-worth families —wealth changes the questions insurance answers.
Past a certain point, insurance stops being about replacing income and starts being about moving wealth: funding the estate’s tax bill, growing long-horizon capital tax-advantaged, and delivering defined amounts to the right hands — quietly, quickly, and generally tax-free.
You don't need protection from bad luck — but from friction.
High-net-worth estates fail differently. The risk isn't that the family runs out of money; it's that taxes, probate, timing, and disputes quietly consume a meaningful share of what took a lifetime to build. Insurance, at this level, is friction engineering: pre-funding the known costs and hard-wiring the intended outcomes.
The deemed disposition at death is usually the anchor problem. Appreciated portfolios, real estate, and private company shares generate a tax bill that arrives when assets are hardest to sell well. A permanent policy sized to the projection converts that uncertainty into a fixed, often discounted, pre-funded cost.
Insurance is also one of the few remaining tax-advantaged environments for long-horizon capital: cash value inside an exempt policy can grow without annual taxation within limits prescribed by the Income Tax Act, and the death benefit is generally received tax-free — a combination taxable portfolios cannot replicate for transfer-oriented wealth.
Tanya's high-net-worth work is deliberately collaborative and deliberately unhurried: modelled in your real numbers, coordinated with your accountant, lawyer, and portfolio manager, and explained until the strategy is genuinely yours.
Four jobs insurance does for substantial estates.
Estate tax liquidity
A defined, generally tax-free amount arriving precisely when the deemed disposition and estate costs come due — no forced sales, no bad timing.
Tax-advantaged accumulation
Exempt permanent policies as a long-horizon asset class: growth without annual taxation within Income Tax Act limits, for capital already destined for the next generation.
Probate-efficient transfer
Named-beneficiary proceeds generally bypass the estate — private, prompt, and outside probate on those amounts in most circumstances.
Legacy precision
Defined amounts to specific people or causes — equalizing heirs, providing for blended families, or endowing philanthropy without reducing the children’s inheritance.
Insurance versus the taxable alternative.
The taxable path
Transfer-oriented capital grows in a taxable portfolio, is taxed annually along the way, taxed again at death, then probated. Every stage leaks.
The insurance path
The same capital funds an exempt policy: tax-advantaged growth within prescribed limits, a generally tax-free benefit, and probate bypass through named beneficiaries.
The honest test
Tanya models both paths, after all taxes and costs, at your life expectancy and beyond. If insurance doesn't win for your goals, she'll say so — in writing.
For families across Alberta, BC, and Ontario, this single comparison — run honestly, in real numbers — is often the most valuable hour of estate planning they ever do.
Families Tanya builds for.
The appreciated portfolio
Eight figures across markets and real estate, with a projected seven-figure tax bill at second death. A joint last-to-die policy pre-funds the liability for cents on the dollar of its eventual cost.
The multi-property family
A principal residence, an Okanagan lake house, and a Toronto condo — each with different tax and emotional stakes. Insurance funds the gains tax on the keepers so no heir is forced to sell what the family loves.
The quiet philanthropist
A donor endows her foundation through a policy — a transformational future gift, potential tax credits for the estate, and the children's inheritance fully intact.
The blended estate
Defined, named-beneficiary amounts for children of a first marriage; the will governs the rest. Certainty for everyone, litigation for no one.
HNW insurance planning, answered plainly.
We're already wealthy — why would we need insurance?+
What is a joint last-to-die policy?+
How does the exempt test affect large policies?+
Will this conflict with my existing estate plan?+
How private is an insurance-based transfer?+
Discreet, independent advice, across three provinces.
Tanya serves high-net-worth individuals and families throughout Alberta — including Calgary, Edmonton, and Grande Prairie — across British Columbia, including Vancouver, West Vancouver, Victoria, and Kelowna, and throughout Ontario, including Toronto, Oakville, Ottawa, and Mississauga.
Run the comparison your estate deserves.
Insurance versus the taxable alternative, in your numbers, after every tax and cost — one meeting, one honest answer.