The fact of the matter is that most people, if not everyone, will require some form of insurance over the course of their lives. Homeowners, for instance, may not have home insurance if they own their home outright. However, should anything happen, such as a freak of nature that damages their home beyond repair, they will have to foot the bill themselves. If they had home insurance, however, they would have financial help to rebuild.

But it is not just the homeowners that can require that helping hand; there are other insurances that can be opted for – some are mandatory, while others are just a very good idea.

Car Insurance

In Canada, it is mandatory to have car insurance if you own a vehicle. This is to protect you should you be involved in an accident. Liability and accident benefits tend to cover bodily injury, and these are the basic coverage that you should have. Of course, you can opt to have a more comprehensive car insurance policy. This might cover fire, theft, vandalism, and glass breakage or have the addition of collision car insurance offered by some insurance brokers.

Health Insurance

Having health insurance in Canada is also important and a necessity; you must have a provincial health insurance card for the province or territory within which you are living. Although, in saying this, those individuals that have Canadian citizenship or are permanent residents have government health insurance paid for via their taxes – others, however, do not. Government health insurance will not, however, cover everything that you could need. It will help finance a hospital stay or medical services at the point of use but will not necessarily cover prescriptions, outpatient drugs, or dental care. For these, you will have to get some health insurance of your own. Of course, with this, there is then the option to have private medical care.

If you are a visitor to Canada, you will be required to have health insurance for the entirety of your stay in Canada as you are not going to be entitled to any healthcare without it.

Business Insurance

Regardless of what type of business you are running, it is highly likely that you will require some sort of business insurance. This will cover you and your business from such eventualities as damage to the property, equipment, liability claim,s as well as cyber-attacks, scams, and online liabilities. Business insurance can be even more important if you are running a business where you are visiting customers at their homes, as you will also be able to protect their property from damage while you are there or have insurance in place to guard against the financial loss of trip, fall, or lawsuit.

Final thoughts

Insurance is there as a way of financial help, although in some cases it is mandatory and in others it is optional. Lawsuits can result in more than just bruised reputations; they are generally very expensive to those that are found liable and can result not only in loss of business but also an extremely large fine or even a jail sentence.

If you do not have any business insurance, for instance, and a lawsuit scenario ensues, you could find that you are facing not one but all of these consequences. This could be due to the fact that you were unable to hire the services of a good lawyer to act on your behalf in court, services that could very well have been covered by an insurance policy.

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