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Desjardins Financial Security is the division of Desjardins Insurance that sells life insurance, and it’s a very well-established business. As a result, the range of Desjardins life insurance products is up there with the big three life insurance providers with regard to consumer choice.

Desjardins term life insurance is well featured, offering 10, 20, or 30-year terms. A maximum insurable age of 75 is respectable but lower than some other life insurance companies. Desjardins term life insurance policies are renewable and convertible to any of their permanent policies. Desjardins term insurance is by no means the most flexible out there (that prize goes to RBC life insurance) but it’s still a great product with lots of options.

Desjardins permanent insurance comes in three varieties: Basic, Personalized, and Participating. Basic is a type of simplified life insurance for 50-75 years olds, for up to $20,000 - you could also consider it a kind of funeral insurance. It doesn’t require a medical, but there are several medical eligibility questions. The Personalized product is essentially a term-to-100 life insurance policy. Joint coverage is available, but with only a joint-second-to-die option.

Desjardins participating life insurance is a strong participating whole life insurance policy, with plenty of flexibility. You have the choice of steady ongoing or accelerated premiums, as well as the option of an increasing or steady death benefit. It’s a no-frills plan, but that’s not always a bad thing.

Desjardins universal life insurance provides the most flexibility a whole life insurance policy can offer. Their universal life insurance combines your life insurance policy with a tax-advantaged savings account, with the flexibility to choose from over 30 of Desjardin’s investment options. While Desjardins universal coverage doesn’t offer as many options as Sun Life, Great West Life, or Manulife life insurance, it’s a good product, that isn’t common offered by bank-owned life insurance companies.

Some of the oldest banks in Canada are over 200 years old, making Desjardins a spring chicken at  ~120 years old. Alphonse Desjardins founded Caisse populaire de Lévis in 1901 in Lévis, just south of Quebec City. The group was his attempt to create a more supportive financial institution that didn’t exploit its members, which he believed was being done by banks at the time. While it wasn’t the first cooperative in North America, it was the first savings and credit cooperative on the continent.

In 1908, Desjardins founded his first caisse (cooperative) in the US, and his first in Ontario in 1912. By the time of his death in 1920, he has opened 136 caisses in Quebec, 19 in Ontario and 9 in the US.

Over the following decades, the group became more federalized. Initially, individual caisses formed union régionales, or regional credit unions. In 1932, a central federation was formed to support the caisses, and to qualify for government support through the depression. This federation would eventually become the umbrella Desjardins Group we know today, but it was known as the somewhat inefficient title of Fédération de Québec des unions régionales de caisses populaires Desjardins.

Desjardins Group generally receives strong credit ratings, although they are one of the only major life insurance providers so have a negative outlook from Moody’s:

• Standard and Poor’s: A+ (Very strong)
• Moody’s: AA1 (High quality) - Negative outlook
• DBRS: AA (Excellent)