Cannabis use and life insurance

A genuinely Canadian answer

This is one of the areas where Canadian and American guidance diverge most, so material written for a US audience is actively misleading here.

Non-medical cannabis has been legal and regulated in Canada since 2018, and life insurers adapted. Cannabis is now asked about separately from tobacco on Canadian applications, and many insurers will offer non-smoker rates to people who use it.

That is a meaningful change from the position a decade ago, when cannabis use frequently meant smoker rates by default. Some insurers moved further and faster than others, which is why the answer still varies by company.

Frequency is the main variable

Underwriters care much more about how often than about whether.

Occasional use, meaning a few times a month or less, is commonly accepted at non-smoker rates by insurers that have updated their guidelines. For many applicants this results in no effect on price at all.

Regular use attracts more attention, and the threshold at which it does varies between insurers.

Daily or near-daily use is more likely to be assessed as smoker-equivalent, or to attract a rating, particularly where it is smoked.

Because the thresholds differ, someone using cannabis a few times a week can genuinely receive different classifications from different companies. It is worth asking what a given insurer’s threshold is rather than guessing.

Method matters

An underwriter’s concern about smoked cannabis is partly the same as their concern about smoked anything: what it does to the lungs over time.

Smoking raises respiratory questions and is the method most likely to attract smoker-equivalent treatment at higher frequencies.

Vaporising sits somewhat differently, and treatment varies.

Edibles, oils, capsules and tinctures avoid the respiratory question entirely, and several insurers assess these more favourably at the same frequency of use.

If you use cannabis in a form other than smoking, say so specifically. An application that records only “cannabis use” leaves the underwriter to assume the most common method.

Medical cannabis

Where cannabis is prescribed or authorized for a medical condition, the underwriting focus shifts.

The cannabis itself becomes a secondary matter. What the underwriter wants to know is what it is being used for, because the underlying condition is what carries the risk. Cannabis authorized for chronic pain directs attention to the source of the pain. Cannabis used for anxiety directs attention to the mental health history. Cannabis used alongside cancer treatment directs attention there.

That is usually the right way round, and it means medical use is neither automatically better nor automatically worse than recreational use. It is a signpost to something else in the file.

Nicotine is a separate question

Worth stating plainly, because applications ask both and people sometimes conflate them.

Answering the cannabis question does not answer the tobacco question, and vice versa. Someone who uses cannabis but no tobacco is a non-smoker for the nicotine question and should answer accordingly.

Cotinine testing detects nicotine, not THC. It will not flag cannabis use. Standard life insurance testing panels do not routinely screen for THC, which means the cannabis answer relies more on your disclosure than the nicotine answer does.

That is not a reason to answer it loosely. Cannabis use appears in medical records where it has been discussed with a doctor, and an inaccurate answer is a misstatement on the application with the consequences set out in leaving something off the application.

See smokers, vaping and nicotine testing for the nicotine side.

Where it becomes a larger question

Where cannabis use appears alongside other substances, underwriters assess the pattern as a whole rather than the cannabis in isolation, and that is a different assessment. See substance use and recovery.

Very heavy use, or use that has been associated with time off work, hospital attendance or a documented substance use disorder, is assessed on those terms rather than as ordinary recreational use.

Applying

Answer the cannabis question and the tobacco question separately and accurately. State frequency and method, since both change the classification.

If use is medical, say what it was authorized for, since that is what the underwriter will assess.

Because insurers diverged after legalisation and have not converged since, this is an area where a single application gives a poor picture of the market. For a regular user, it is worth having the file looked at across several companies.

The boundary

This page describes how insurance applications are assessed. It is not health information about cannabis, and nothing here is guidance about use. Anything on that side belongs with your doctor.