Document · Health insurance
Super visa insurance, bought from India
One requirement on the super visa cannot be satisfied by any company in India, and the most confident answers online get it backwards.
The short answer
No insurance company in India can write the health insurance a Canadian super visa requires. IRCC accepts a policy only from a Canadian insurer, or from a foreign insurer that OSFI regulates, that appears on OSFI's public register, and that issued the policy while doing insurance business in Canada. An insurer supervised only in India meets none of those conditions.
Ask an AI assistant and you may be told the opposite
Perplexity currently answers that parents in India can buy this policy from an Indian insurer. It is wrong. The rule below is on IRCC's own forms and documents page, linked at the foot of this page, and OSFI's position on foreign insurers is quoted there in full.
Who is allowed to write this policy
A Canadian insurance company can, with nothing further to prove. A company outside Canada can only if all three of the following are true at the same time.
authorised by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions under the Insurance Companies Act to provide accident and sickness insurance
listed on OSFI's public register of federally regulated financial institutions
issued or made the policy while doing insurance business in Canada
The third condition is the one that does the work, and it is easy to read past. It is not enough for a company to be large, well regulated at home, or willing to sell you a Canadian travel policy. It has to have been doing insurance business in Canada at the moment it issued your policy, and any policy from a foreign insurer must carry a statement saying so.
OSFI settles it in one sentence
OSFI does not keep a list of foreign insurance companies outside Canada unless they are registered with it as branches or subsidiaries in Canada.
So the question is not whether your insurer is good. It is which regulator supervises it. An insurer answerable to the IRDAI in India and to nobody in Canada is not on the register Canada reads, and no amount of correspondence will put it there.
What the policy itself has to say
| Requirement | What that means in practice |
|---|---|
| CAD 100,000 minimum | Emergency coverage. A policy written for a smaller sum fails on its face. |
| 12 months from entry | The year runs from the date your parents arrive, not the date the policy was bought. A policy purchased early has to be written to start on arrival. |
| Three things covered | Health care, hospitalisation and repatriation. Repatriation is the one budget policies quietly leave out. |
| Paid, not quoted | In full, or on instalments with a deposit paid. A quotation is not a policy however official it looks. |
| The insurer named | The company that underwrote the cover, which is the name checked against the OSFI register. |
| Valid on each entry | Border officers can ask to see it every time your parents arrive, not only the first time. |
How a family in India actually buys one
Almost always through the child in Canada. A Canadian insurer sells to a Canadian resident buying cover for a visiting parent, which is a normal product there and an ordinary transaction. The premium is paid in Canadian dollars from Canada, and the certificate is emailed to whoever is assembling the application.
Paying for it in instalments is allowed, which matters because a year of cover for someone in their late sixties is not a small premium and buying it outright before the visa is even approved is a real cost to a family. What you cannot do is send a quotation and settle it later.
We do not sell insurance and we do not recommend an insurer. What we do is read the certificate against the test above before your family pays anything, because a policy that fails this test fails the whole application and it is the least expensive thing on the file to get right.
How a real policy still fails
These are certificates that exist, were paid for, and are still refused.
- a quote rather than a policy: it must be paid in full, or on instalments with a deposit down
- a broker or a claims administrator named as the insurer, neither of which is an insurance company
- coverage that runs from the policy date rather than a year from the date of entry
- a foreign policy with no statement that it was issued while the company was doing insurance business in Canada
The insurance is one requirement of several. The income test on the host in Canada is the one that decides most applications.
Questions families ask
Can I buy super visa insurance from an Indian company?
You cannot buy super visa insurance from an Indian insurance company. IRCC accepts a policy from a Canadian insurance company, or from a company outside Canada that is authorised by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions under the Insurance Companies Act, appears on OSFI’s public list of federally regulated financial institutions, and issued the policy while doing insurance business in Canada. All three have to be true at once. OSFI does not list foreign insurers unless they are registered with it as branches or subsidiaries in Canada, so an insurer supervised only by the IRDAI in India is not on the list Canada is reading and cannot be. This is not a comment on how well Indian insurers are regulated at home. It is a question about which regulator, and the answer is fixed.
How much super visa insurance do I need?
You need at least CAD 100,000 in emergency medical coverage, valid for 12 months from the date you enter Canada. The policy has to cover health care, hospitalisation and repatriation. Two details catch families out. The year runs from the date of entry rather than from the date you buy the policy, so a policy bought three months before the flight has to be written to start on arrival. And you need proof of cover on each entry to Canada, not only the first, which matters for parents who go home for a wedding and come back.
Can I pay for super visa insurance monthly?
You can pay for super visa insurance in instalments, and IRCC says so on its own document checklist: the policy must be paid in full, or on instalments with a deposit paid. What is not accepted is a quote. This is a real distinction rather than a technicality, because the cheapest thing to obtain from an insurer is a quotation and it looks very much like a policy to somebody who has never seen either. A quote is a price the insurer is willing to offer. A policy is cover that exists. Only the second one has a policy number and an insurer named on it as the underwriter.
My broker gave me the certificate. Is that enough?
A certificate naming a broker where the insurer belongs is not enough, and IRCC names this failure specifically: insurance brokers and claims administrators are not insurance companies and will not appear on the OSFI list. The broker may be entirely legitimate and the policy behind it may be perfectly valid. The document still has to name the company that actually underwrote the cover, because that is the name an officer checks against the register. If the certificate names only the agency that sold it to you, ask the broker for the underwriter’s name and a document that carries it.
Where this comes from
Super visa insurance
Send us the certificate before you pay for it.
We check the insurer against the OSFI register, read the policy for the four things IRCC looks for, and tell you if it will be refused. It is the cheapest correction on a super visa file and the most commonly needed.
Three fields · about 30 seconds