Super visa insurance: the CAD 100,000 rule, and who can legally sell it to you

Super visa insurance is the private medical cover a parent or grandparent must buy before visiting Canada on a super visa: at least 100,000 CAD of emergency coverage, valid for a minimum of one year from the date of entry, covering health care, hospitalization and repatriation.

Those conditions are not an insurer's marketing promise. They come from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), on its own Forms and documents page for the super visa, last modified on 30 July 2026 and read on 2 September 2026. Every regulatory figure below is quoted from that page or from the Ministerial Instructions behind it.

One thing is worth saying before you read any further, because most pages ranking for this query will not say it. HelloSafe does not sell a super visa insurance policy. Our Canadian catalogue is outbound cover for people who already live in Canada and travel abroad, which is the opposite trip. This page exists to help you buy the right policy somewhere else, and to stop you buying a policy that will be rejected.

It is written for the person who actually does the paperwork: the Canadian citizen, permanent resident or registered Indian hosting a parent or grandparent. In practice the host reads the rules, pays for the policy and carries the blame if the application comes back refused, so the whole page is written from that seat.

Updated September 2026 by P. Laurore, Co-founder and Travel and Credit Card Insurance Expert at HelloSafe.

IRCC sets seven separate conditions for super visa insurance, and a policy has to satisfy all seven: an eligible insurer, that insurer named on the document, 100,000 CAD of emergency coverage, one year of validity from the date of entry, proof of payment, validity for each entry, and availability at the border.

Read them as a checklist rather than a paragraph. Applicants rarely fail on the amount, which is easy to buy. They fail on the document: a quote instead of a paid policy, a start date tied to the purchase, or an issuer that does not qualify.

Insurance is only one of the tests. IRCC's eligibility page also requires the applicant to "be outside Canada when you submit your application", to "take an immigration medical exam", and to be hosted by a child or grandchild who is a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or registered Indian, is at least 18, lives in Canada, meets the income test and signs an invitation letter.

The prize for clearing all of it is generous, which is why the paperwork is strict. IRCC states that a super visa lets a parent or grandparent visit "for 5 years at a time" and gives "multiple entries for a period of up to 10 years".

Super visa insurance has to come from a Canadian insurance company, or from an insurance company outside Canada that is authorized by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI). No other insurer qualifies, however generous the policy or however large the ceiling.

This is the condition families get wrong most often, because it is the only one that cannot be fixed by buying more cover. A 500,000 CAD policy from an insurer that is neither Canadian nor OSFI authorized fails, while a 100,000 CAD policy from a qualifying insurer passes.

There is a wording difference worth knowing about. IRCC's applicant-facing page names OSFI explicitly. The Ministerial Instructions in force since 31 March 2026 use a broader formula: "a health insurance policy from a Canadian insurance company, or a health insurance policy from an insurance company outside Canada that is approved by the Minister." The safe reading is the stricter one on the IRCC page, so treat OSFI authorization as the test.

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  A Canadian insurance company : the simplest route, and the one most Canadian hosts end up taking because eligibility is not in doubt.
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  A foreign insurer authorized by OSFI : legitimate, but ask the insurer to confirm its OSFI authorization in writing before you pay.
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  A certificate that names the underwriter : IRCC asks for the insurance company name that issued the policy, so the brand you bought from is not enough on its own.

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  Your parent's domestic health insurer : a good policy in Delhi, Manila or Lagos means nothing here unless that company is Canadian or OSFI authorized.
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  A travel policy bought for the wrong direction : cover sold to residents of Canada travelling abroad does not insure a visitor arriving in Canada, even when the insurer is Canadian.
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  A credit card travel benefit : card cover is tied to the cardholder's residency and trip, is capped well below what a long Canadian stay can cost, and does not produce the year-long named policy IRCC asks for.

We have audited several insurers active in the Canadian travel market against their own policy wordings, including Aviva travel insurance in Canada and AIG travel insurance in Canada. Those reviews cover outbound travel products rather than super visa plans, so use them to judge how an insurer behaves on claims, not as proof that a given plan is super visa eligible.

No. HelloSafe does not currently offer a super visa insurance policy, and we would rather say so on the page than sell you a quote that IRCC will reject. Every plan in our Canadian catalogue is outbound travel insurance for people who already live in Canada.

That is not a judgement about the plans, it is a hard restriction in how they are sold. Each of them requires the traveller to be departing from Canada, which is structurally the opposite of a super visa applicant boarding a plane towards Canada.

So buy your parent's policy directly from a Canadian insurer or a Canadian broker who can put the OSFI or Canadian status in writing. We earn nothing from that decision, which is precisely why this section can exist. If you are the host and you are the one travelling, our travel insurance comparison is built for you, but it is a different product and it will not satisfy a super visa officer.

IRCC requires super visa insurance to "cover the applicant's health care, hospitalization and repatriation" and to "provide a minimum emergency coverage of $100,000". Those few words are the entire legal test, which is why two compliant policies can be wildly different documents.

Health care and hospitalization are the expensive half. A visitor to Canada has no provincial health coverage, so an emergency admission is billed privately, and that is the risk the 100,000 CAD floor is sized against. Repatriation is the half people forget: it pays to bring your parent home when they cannot fly commercially, and in the worst case it pays for the return of remains.

Because IRCC only sets a minimum, everything above the floor is a commercial choice. Here is what actually separates a policy that will look after your family from one that merely gets the visa stamped.

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  Emergency medical and hospital care : the core of the 100,000 CAD, paying for the ambulance, the emergency room and the hospital stay.
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  Repatriation : named explicitly by IRCC, and the single guarantee that can cost more than everything else combined.
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  Direct billing to the hospital : IRCC does not require it, but without it your family pays a Canadian hospital up front and claims the money back afterwards.
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  A ceiling above the floor : 100,000 CAD is the legal minimum, and a long intensive care stay can pass it, so treat the floor as the starting point of the conversation.
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  Renewable cover for each entry : the visa can run ten years, so ask now what the policy will cost to renew, not only what it costs today.

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  A quote or an unpaid application : IRCC states plainly that quotes aren't accepted, and this is one of the easiest refusals to avoid.
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  Cover that starts on the purchase date : the year has to run from the date of entry to Canada, so a policy bought four months early can be four months short.
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  An issuer that is neither Canadian nor OSFI authorized : the amount of cover is irrelevant if the company cannot legally issue it.
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  Assuming public health care will step in : IRCC requires private insurance precisely because a super visa holder is a visitor, not a resident of a province.

The 100,000 CAD on a super visa insurance certificate is a maximum, not a promise. Deductibles, pre-existing condition clauses and stability periods sit underneath it, and none of them breaks IRCC's rule, because IRCC only sets a minimum emergency coverage amount and says nothing about how the insurer may limit it.

That gap between compliant and adequate is the whole reason to read the wording. Four clauses do most of the damage.

The deductible

IRCC's wording sets a minimum amount and is silent on deductibles, so a fully compliant policy can carry a large one. Raising the deductible is the standard way a premium gets cheap, and it is invisible on the certificate the visa officer reads. Ask for the figure in dollars before you compare two prices.

Pre-existing conditions and the stability period

IRCC's three coverage words are health care, hospitalization and repatriation. None of them requires an insurer to cover a condition your parent already has. A policy can therefore be perfectly super visa compliant and still exclude the exact heart condition or diabetes that makes you want the insurance in the first place, usually through a stability period clause requiring the condition to have been unchanged and untreated for a set number of months before departure. This is the single most expensive trap on this page, and it is worth reading our guide to pre-existing condition travel insurance before you choose a plan.

Instalments and lapses

IRCC explicitly allows a policy to "be paid in full or in instalments with a deposit", which is what makes monthly super visa plans acceptable. The risk is on the other side: a missed instalment can cancel cover part-way through a stay, while the visa was granted on the basis that a full year had been bought. Set up the payments so they cannot silently fail.

Refunds if the visa is refused

A refund on refusal is not an IRCC requirement, so whether you get your money back is entirely a matter of the insurer's own terms. Since you have to buy and pay before you apply, this is a real financial risk. Ask for the refund policy in writing before you pay, and keep the answer.

The mechanics of age bands, medical questionnaires and stability periods are the same across the market, and we have documented them in detail in our guide to travel insurance for senior citizens.

HelloSafe does not publish a premium for super visa insurance, because we do not quote this product and we will not reprint figures from insurer marketing pages that we cannot verify against a live quote. What we can give you is the list of variables the price is genuinely built on, and the separate income test that costs your household far more than the policy.

When you collect quotes, hold these six variables constant across every insurer or the comparison is meaningless.

• The applicant's age at the start date, which is the strongest single driver.
• The deductible, in dollars, not as a vague "low excess" claim.
• Whether pre-existing conditions are covered, and the length of the stability period attached.
• The coverage amount, since 100,000 CAD is the legal floor and higher tiers are sold.
• The length of cover bought, remembering that one year from the date of entry is the minimum.
• Payment in full versus instalments, which changes both the price and the risk of a lapse.

The larger cost is the host's income requirement, and unlike the premium it is published by IRCC as a hard number. Your household has to show a minimum income based on family size before the visa can be granted at all.

Since 31 March 2026 that test has become easier to pass. IRCC's notice on the change describes two alternatives: hosts "may meet or exceed the income requirement in either one of the two taxation years preceding the time of application", and, if the hosts meet a required minimum percentage of the income, "the income of the visiting parents and grandparents can be added to cover the remaining amount". The full figures live on IRCC's proof of financial support page.

Most super visa insurance problems have nothing to do with the amount of cover. They are document problems: a quote submitted instead of a paid policy, a start date tied to the purchase rather than the entry, or a certificate that never names the insurance company that issued it.

Run this sequence in order and the insurance half of the application stops being a risk.

1. Confirm in writing that the insurer is a Canadian insurance company or is authorized by OSFI, before you discuss price with anyone.
2. Check the plan is a visitors-to-Canada product, not an outbound policy sold to residents of Canada.
3. Buy it and pay it, in full or with a deposit on an instalment plan, because IRCC does not accept quotes.
4. Check the certificate names the insurance company that issued the policy, and shows at least 100,000 CAD of emergency coverage.
5. Check the cover runs at least one year from the planned date of entry, and reset it before every future entry across the visa's ten years.
6. Give your parent a printed copy for hand luggage, because a border services officer can ask to review it on request.

Keep the proof of payment with the policy. The distinction IRCC draws between a paid policy and a quote is the one that generates avoidable refusals, and a receipt settles it instantly.

• How much super visa insurance do I need?

  IRCC requires a policy that provides “a minimum emergency coverage of $100,000” in Canadian dollars. That is a floor rather than a recommendation: a long hospital or intensive care stay in Canada can pass it, so higher tiers are worth pricing.

• Can I buy super visa insurance from an insurer in my own country?

  Only if that insurer qualifies. IRCC accepts a policy from "a Canadian insurance company or an insurance company outside Canada that is authorized by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI)". A domestic health insurer that is neither will not be accepted, whatever the coverage amount.

• Does super visa insurance have to be paid in full?

  No. IRCC accepts a policy that is "paid in full or in instalments with a deposit", but it adds that "quotes aren’t accepted". So a monthly plan is fine as long as the deposit is paid and you can prove it.

• When does the one year of super visa insurance start?

  From the date of entry to Canada, not from the day you buy. IRCC requires the policy to "be valid for a minimum of 1 year from the date of entry", so buying months ahead without adjusting the start date can leave the cover short.

• Does HelloSafe sell super visa insurance?

  No. Every plan in our Canadian catalogue is outbound travel insurance requiring the traveller to depart from Canada, which cannot insure a visitor arriving in Canada. We say so rather than sending you into a quote that would be rejected, and we earn nothing from your super visa policy.

• Does super visa insurance cover pre-existing conditions?

  Not automatically. IRCC only requires the policy to cover health care, hospitalization and repatriation, so an insurer can exclude a pre-existing condition or attach a stability period and still be fully compliant. Ask about it explicitly before you buy.

• Do I need to renew super visa insurance for each visit?

  Yes. IRCC requires the policy to "be valid for each entry to Canada". Because a super visa can give "multiple entries for a period of up to 10 years", one year of cover only covers one stay, and each new entry needs its own valid policy.

• Is insurance the only super visa requirement?

  No. The applicant must also be outside Canada when the application is submitted, take an immigration medical exam and be allowed to enter Canada, while the host must be a child or grandchild who is a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or registered Indian, is at least 18, lives in Canada, meets the income test and signs an invitation letter.

• What happens if my parent arrives without the policy document?

  IRCC requires the insurance to "be available for review by the border services officers on request", so a printed copy belongs in hand luggage rather than in a suitcase or an email account they cannot reach at the border.

• How much income does my household need alongside the insurance?

  IRCC publishes a minimum income by family size, from $30,526 for a family of one to $80,784 for seven, plus $8,224 per additional person. Since 31 March 2026 hosts may qualify on either of the two taxation years before the application, and the visiting parents’ income can be added once the host meets a minimum percentage. Confirm the current table on IRCC’s proof of financial support page before filing.

• Can I get a refund on super visa insurance if the visa is refused?

  That is not an IRCC rule, so it depends entirely on the insurer’s own terms. Since the policy has to be bought and paid before the application is decided, ask for the refusal refund policy in writing and keep the answer with your file.