Of every service I help families with, the Super Visa causes the most anxiety — and the most avoidable refusals. The visa itself is generous: parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens and permanent residents can stay up to five years per entry, on a visa valid for up to ten years. But it comes with a condition that trips people up constantly: qualifying medical insurance.
The insurance requirement is not a formality. An officer will check the policy, and a single missing element is enough for a refusal. Here is precisely what is required in 2026, followed by the mistakes I see most often.
The four requirements, in plain language
| Minimum coverage | At least $100,000 CAD in emergency medical coverage, per person |
|---|---|
| Validity | At least 365 days from the date of entry to Canada |
| Must cover | Health care, hospitalisation and repatriation |
| Insurer | A Canadian insurance company, or an OSFI-authorised foreign insurer |
| Proof | The policy must be paid — a quote is not accepted |
1. At least $100,000 in emergency medical coverage
This is a floor, not a target. You cannot go below it, even slightly. Many families choose $150,000 or higher, and there is a practical reason: a single overnight hospital stay in Canada can run into thousands of dollars for someone without provincial health coverage, and a serious surgery or cardiac event can cost far more. The gap in premium between $100,000 and $150,000 is usually modest relative to that risk.
2. Valid for a full year from the date of entry
The policy must run 365 consecutive days from the day your parent or grandparent arrives — not from the day you buy it, and not for the length of the intended visit. This catches people out. If your mother plans to stay four months, you still need a one-year policy. Buying a six-month plan to save money is one of the most common causes of refusal.
3. It must cover all three: health care, hospitalisation and repatriation
Repatriation is the one people miss. It covers the cost of returning the insured person to their home country if that becomes medically necessary, or in the event of death. Plenty of inexpensive visitor plans exclude it. If repatriation is not in the policy wording, the application does not meet the requirement.
4. From an approved insurer
Historically this meant a Canadian insurer only. The rules have since widened to include foreign insurers authorised by OSFI to operate in Canada. That gives families more options — but it does not mean any overseas policy qualifies. A policy bought from a non-approved insurer in the applicant's home country will not satisfy IRCC.
The policy must be paid for, not merely quoted. If you are using a monthly payment plan, the deposit must be paid and you need documentation showing active, paid coverage. Submitting a quote is treated as no insurance at all.
What Super Visa insurance actually covers — and what it doesn't
It is worth setting expectations honestly with your parents before they arrive. Super Visa insurance is emergency coverage. It is designed for the unexpected:
- Emergency hospitalisation and emergency surgery
- Ambulance transport
- Physician visits connected to an emergency
- Prescription drugs administered during emergency treatment
- Repatriation
It is not a replacement for a provincial health plan. It generally will not cover routine check-ups, vaccinations, dental work, eyeglasses, ongoing management of a chronic condition, or any treatment that could reasonably have been scheduled in advance. If your father needs regular medication refills or a standing specialist appointment, plan for those separately.
Pre-existing conditions: where the real work is
This is the part that deserves the most attention, and where an independent advisor genuinely earns their keep.
Most insurers will cover a pre-existing condition only if it has been stable for a defined period before the policy takes effect — commonly 90 or 180 days depending on the insurer and the applicant's age. "Stable" typically means no new diagnosis, no change in medication or dosage, no new treatment, and no hospitalisation for that condition during the window.
The definitions vary meaningfully between insurers. A medication dosage adjustment might breach one insurer's stability clause but not another's. When a parent has managed hypertension or diabetes — extremely common — matching them to the right insurer is the difference between a claim being paid and a claim being denied. This is not something a comparison website handles well.
Understating a health condition to get a cheaper premium is the fastest way to have a large claim denied later, when it matters most. Disclose everything. It is my job to find an insurer that will cover the situation as it actually is.
Monthly payment plans
A one-year policy paid up front is a significant sum, especially for families supporting parents on a single income. Several insurers now offer monthly Super Visa plans — often working out to roughly the cost of a daily coffee — which spread the cost across the year rather than demanding it all at once.
Two things to know. First, IRCC still requires proof of paid, active coverage, so the deposit must be settled before the application goes in. Second, monthly plans sometimes carry a slightly higher total cost than paying annually. For most families the cash-flow benefit outweighs that, but you should see both numbers before deciding.
What happens if the visa is refused
Most Super Visa policies refund the premium, less a modest administrative fee, if the visa application is denied and coverage has not yet started. The terms are not identical across insurers, so this is worth confirming before you buy rather than after. I always point clients toward the plans with the most reasonable refund terms, precisely because refusals do happen.
The four mistakes I see most often
- Buying a six-month policy. The 365-day rule is absolute, regardless of how long the visit is intended to be.
- Choosing a plan without repatriation. Cheap visitor plans routinely exclude it, and it is a hard requirement.
- Submitting a quote instead of a paid policy. An unpaid quote is treated as no coverage.
- Glossing over a pre-existing condition. It saves a little on premium and risks the entire claim.
A sensible sequence
If you are starting from scratch, work in this order: confirm your own eligibility as a host (including the minimum necessary income), get quotes and compare the pre-existing condition wording, buy and pay for the policy, then submit the application with proof of paid coverage attached. Getting the insurance right before you apply avoids the most common reason for a refusal, and it means your parents arrive genuinely protected — which, after all, is the actual point.
What changed on 31 March 2026, and why it matters
Two rule changes landed in 2026 that most articles on this subject have not caught up with. Both make it easier to qualify, and both are worth knowing before you conclude your family does not meet the bar.
1. Your host now has two ways to prove income
Until March 2026, IRCC looked at one number: the host's most recent tax year. A single weak year — parental leave, a business loss, a late-career job change — could sink the application regardless of the wider financial picture.
The current application guide (form IMM 5484) now offers two options:
- Option 1 — better of the last two tax years. The host submits a Notice of Assessment for either of the last two taxation years, whichever is stronger.
- Option 2 — 75% plus the visitor's own income. If the host reaches at least 75% of the threshold in the most recent year, the visiting parent's or grandparent's own income (a foreign pension, for instance) can be counted toward the shortfall.
Option 2 in particular is a genuine change in who can qualify. A retired parent with a modest pension abroad is no longer invisible to the calculation.
2. The insurer no longer has to be Canadian
The insurance requirement used to be explicit that the policy had to come from a Canadian insurance company. It now reads: a Canadian insurance company, or an insurer outside Canada approved by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.
The $100,000 minimum and the one-year validity did not change. Only the range of acceptable insurers widened. In practice most families still buy Canadian, because the paperwork is familiar to visa officers and claims are handled in Canadian hospitals — but it is no longer a hard barrier if a family has a strong option from home.
Which income figure applies — and a warning about what you will read elsewhere
This is the single most misreported fact about the Super Visa, so it is worth stating plainly.
The Super Visa uses the Low Income Cut-Off (LICO) minimum. IRCC's own application guide names it exactly that way. A great many insurance and immigration blogs state the threshold is LICO plus 30%. That figure is real, but it belongs to a different programme: sponsoring a parent for permanent residence under the Parents and Grandparents Program. Applying the PGP number to a Super Visa can convince a family they do not qualify when they comfortably do.
I have deliberately not printed a dollar table here. The thresholds are revised every January, and a stale figure on a page like this is worse than no figure at all. Check the current table on IRCC's own page for proof of financial support, and count your family size carefully — it includes the host, the host's spouse or common-law partner, every dependent child (regardless of custody arrangements), and every parent or grandparent applying at the same time. Two categories catch people out: anyone previously approved on a still-valid letter of invitation from the host, and anyone the host has previously sponsored whose undertaking is still in effect. Both must be counted. Miscounting household size is one of the most common reasons a file is short.
Choosing the coverage amount: $100,000 or more?
$100,000 is the floor, not a recommendation. Whether to go higher depends on age and health more than on budget.
| Situation | Typical choice | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Parent under 60, no conditions | $100,000 | Meets the rule; serious claims at this age are less common. |
| Parent 60–69 | $100,000–$150,000 | The step up often costs less than people expect. |
| Parent 70+ | $150,000–$200,000 | Longer hospital stays; cardiac and stroke care escalate quickly. |
| Any age, stable pre-existing condition | $150,000+ | If a related claim is paid at all, it is rarely small. |
For context on why the floor exists: a night in a Canadian hospital bed for someone without provincial coverage runs into the thousands of dollars before treatment is counted, and an air ambulance repatriation can exceed the entire $100,000 minimum on its own. The figure is a legal minimum, not an estimate of what care costs.
Deductibles: the lever most families ignore
The deductible is what your family pays before the insurer pays anything. Raising it lowers the premium, sometimes substantially.
| Deductible | Effect on premium | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| $0 | Highest premium | Families who want certainty and no bills at the point of care. |
| $500–$1,000 | Noticeably lower | Most healthy parents; the usual sensible middle. |
| $2,500–$5,000 | Lowest premium | Only where the family could genuinely pay that on the spot. |
One caution: a high deductible on a parent with an ongoing condition can be a false economy, because the smaller, more frequent claims are the ones you end up absorbing yourself. You can see exactly how much each level changes the price for your parents' ages on the Super Visa quote — the slider re-prices every insurer instantly.
The documents your parents actually need
Insurance is one requirement among several. The full set your family assembles looks roughly like this:
- Proof of the parent or grandparent relationship to the host.
- A signed letter of invitation from the host, promising financial support for the visit.
- Proof the host meets the minimum necessary income — usually a CRA Notice of Assessment, supported by T4s, pay stubs, or an accountant's letter if self-employed.
- Proof of payment for medical insurance meeting all the conditions above. IRCC accepts a policy paid in full or paid in instalments with a deposit made — quotes are not accepted.
- Proof of an immigration medical exam completed with an IRCC-approved panel physician. This is a separate requirement from the insurance and is easy to overlook.
- Proof the host is a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or registered Indian.
- Passport, biometrics, and the standard admissibility requirements for visiting Canada.
The word doing the most work in that list is paid. A quote, a confirmation email, or a policy with an outstanding balance is treated as no insurance at all. On a monthly plan, the first payment must have been made.
Super Visa insurance versus ordinary visitor insurance
These are often confused, and buying the wrong one is a costly mistake.
| Super Visa insurance | Visitor insurance | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum coverage | $100,000 required | No legal minimum |
| Minimum term | 365 days | Any length, from days |
| Repatriation | Required | Often optional |
| Accepted for the visa | Yes | No |
| Typical use | Parents on a Super Visa | Any visitor, shorter stays |
If your parents are visiting on an ordinary visitor visa rather than a Super Visa, the shorter and cheaper option is the right one — see visitor insurance for how that works, or price it directly on the visitor insurance quote.
What happens at the border, and every year after
Two things families routinely overlook once the visa is granted.
First, the policy must be valid and available for inspection on each entry. A border officer can ask for proof every single time your parents arrive, not just the first. Keep a printed copy in their hand luggage; a policy sitting in an email inbox is not much use at a kiosk.
Second, the visa can run up to ten years, and a stay can run up to five years per entry — but the insurance is bought a year at a time. Coverage has to be renewed for as long as they remain. Renewal is priced at your parent's age at renewal, which is why a birthday crossing an insurer's age band can move the price sharply. Where a parent is near the top of a band, it is worth asking what next year looks like before choosing this year's plan.
A note on honesty in the application
It can be tempting to answer the medical questions lightly to bring the premium down, or to buy a cheaper plan that does not really cover a known condition. It is worth being blunt about how that ends: the policy is issued, the premium is lower, and then a claim related to that condition is denied. The family is left with a hospital bill that the insurance was bought specifically to prevent.
Insurers do ask for medical records when a claim is significant. The gap between what was declared and what the records show is exactly where claims fail. Declaring a condition accurately may cost more, or may mean choosing a different insurer — and it is the only version of this that actually protects anyone.
