Her son booked the flight. Then he found out the Super Visa wants a year of insurance, not a trip.

Picture a late night at the kitchen table. You’ve got the IRCC portal open on your laptop and your mother’s passport propped against the screen so you can copy the numbers in exactly right. She’s flying in to meet the new baby — three weeks, maybe four. You’ve already booked the flight.

Then you hit the insurance line.

And it doesn’t ask about three weeks. It asks for proof that your mother is covered for $100,000, for at least one year.

You read it twice. She’s not staying a year. The flight home is already in your inbox. So why does the visa want twelve months of insurance for a three-week visit?

This is the moment that stops people cold in the Super Visa process — the moment you realize the insurance requirement has nothing to do with how long Mom plans to stay. So let’s take it apart, because once you see the logic, it stops being scary and starts being a checkbox.

The rule, exactly as the government writes it

The Super Visa is the long-game version of a visitor visa: it lets parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens and permanent residents come for extended stays, multiple times, over years. In exchange for that flexibility, the Canadian government requires every applicant to carry valid emergency medical insurance.

The requirement is published plainly: $100,000 coverage minimum, for at least 1 year.

That’s the line that stops people at 11 p.m. The number is firm, and the term — one year — is what trips everyone up.

Here’s the mental model. The visa officer isn’t insuring the trip. They’re insuring the privilege. A Super Visa can let your mother enter Canada again and again across its validity. So the government wants a year of medical protection sitting under her the whole time she could be here — not a policy that matches whatever flight you happened to book this month.

So you don’t buy three weeks. You buy a 365-day policy at a $100,000 sum insured (or higher), submit the proof, and the three-week visit lives comfortably inside it.

Why the “full” Visitors plan matters more for a 70-year-old

Now the part most families miss until it’s too late.

When a parent is 65 or 72, the real question isn’t “are they insured?” It’s “are their existing health conditions insured?” The blood-pressure pill. The managed diabetes. The heart medication that’s been the same dose for years.

There are two versions of visitor coverage, and the difference is the whole ballgame:

• Basic Visitors to Canada does not cover pre-existing conditions. At all. It also caps at age 79 and gives you a single follow-up visit. Cheaper, yes — but for most Super Visa parents with any health history, it’s the wrong tool.
• The full Visitors to Canada plan covers pre-existing conditions if they’re stable, and has no age limit.

“Stable” isn’t a vibe — it’s a four-part test, and it’s worth knowing because it’s the same logic the insurer applies to every applicant. A condition is stable when, over a set lookback window, all four are true: there’s been no deterioration, no new or worse symptoms, no change in treatment, and no change or alteration in medication. Routine generic swaps and within-parameter insulin or blood-thinner adjustments don’t break it.

The lookback window depends on age at application:

• 59 and under → 120 days
• 60 to 69 → 180 days
• 70 and over → 365 days

So if your mother is 71, the question becomes: has her health been steady for the year before the policy’s effective date? If yes, the full plan can cover those conditions. The Basic plan would have left them out entirely — which is the kind of gap a family only discovers in a hospital hallway.

That’s the trade. Basic is for a healthy 50-something on a quick visit. The full Visitors plan, at $100,000 for a year, is the one built for the Super Visa parent.

The trap nobody warns you about

Here’s the beat that saves real money.

You’re staring at a year-long, $100,000 policy. Your mother is staying three weeks. Your brain screams waste — what if the visa gets refused? What if she only comes for a month? Are you lighting a full year of premium on fire?

No. The Super Visa version of this insurance has a built-in escape hatch, and it’s designed for exactly this fear.

If you buy a Super Visa policy and no travel takes place, you can cancel — subject to a $250 cancellation fee. Not a forfeit of the whole premium. A $250 fee.

Better still: if the Super Visa is denied, withdrawn, or your parent is refused entry, you can get a refund — full before the effective date, or less an administrative fee after — as long as you request it within 90 days and send the supporting documents. (And that $250 cancellation fee? It applies only to Super Visa policies — it isn’t a charge on ordinary visitor coverage.)

Read that again, because it reverses the whole anxiety. You are not gambling a year of premium on the visa being approved. The product knows the visa might be refused, and it’s built to give your money back when that happens.

So the move is clean: buy the full year now so the application has its proof, and lean on the refund rules if the visa doesn’t come through. You’re covered for the requirement and protected against the “what if it’s refused” fear at the same time.

What this actually costs

Honest answer: it depends, and anyone who quotes you a flat number for a Super Visa parent is guessing. The premium moves with age, the sum insured you pick ($100,000, $200,000, $300,000), the deductible you choose (anywhere from $0 up to $10,000), and — for applicants 60 and over — a short Medical Questionnaire that sets the rate. Under 60? No medical questions at all. Sixty or over? It’s a brief form, and it determines your premium, not whether you’re eligible.

That’s exactly why we don’t publish a price. We price the actual parent, on the actual trip.

Who’s who, quickly: Sacraw Financial is an FSRA-licensed Canadian insurance agency. The Visitors plans here are underwritten by Industrial Alliance and administered by TuGo; if a claim happens, TuGo handles it, and we make sure you understand your coverage before you buy. What we do is put the right policy in place for your parent’s application.

So, back to that form

It’s 11:30 now. The coffee’s gone cold. But the panic’s gone too, because the line that stopped you turned out to be the simplest part: one year, $100,000, full plan if she has any health history — and a refund path if the visa falls through.

If you’re filling out that same form tonight, you don’t have to solve it alone. We can price a Super Visa policy for your parent’s age and trip at sacraw.com/quote/ — or if you just want to see how the full and Basic plans stack up before you decide, that’s at sacraw.com/coverage/. Just the right number for the form in front of you.