Estate Tax Funding and Private Client Insurance in Burlington
A Burlington business owner sold a piece of his company last year. Between the holding company, the cottage, two rental properties, and a large RRIF, his accountant just walked him through what his estate will owe the CRA at death, and the number startled him. He does not want a 1-800 line or a different bank advisor every eighteen months. He wants someone local. Someone his accountant can sit across the table from, who understands corporate structures, and who will put a real plan in writing. He searched for a life insurance advisor in Burlington, Ontario, and most of what came back was job postings.
Leyland & Matters Private Client Insurance Advisors is an independent life insurance advisory based in Burlington, led by two Chartered Professional Accountants. We focus on one thing: using life insurance to fund estate taxes and move wealth efficiently for affluent families and incorporated business owners. The goal behind every plan is the same. Leave more of your wealth to your family and charity, and less to the CRA.
A Burlington office, by appointment
You will find us at:
Leyland & Matters Private Client Insurance Advisors
5500 North Service Road, Suite 303
Burlington, Ontario
By appointment
The office sits on the North Service Road corridor just off the QEW, which makes it an easy meeting point for clients and their accountants coming from anywhere in Burlington, Oakville, or Hamilton. Meetings are by appointment because the work is private and the conversations involve real numbers. Nobody walks in off the street to talk about a multi-million dollar estate, and we would not want them to.
Who we work with
We are a boutique, not a brokerage for everyone. The work fits three kinds of people.
Families with significant estates
Families with estates of $25 million and up, often holding a cottage, rental properties, private company shares, or a large RRSP or RRIF. At death, Canada’s deemed disposition rules treat most of those assets as sold, and the tax bill lands on the estate whether or not there is cash to pay it. We design life insurance to pay estate taxes so the family keeps the cottage and the company instead of selling them to pay the CRA. Where the estate splits unevenly between children, we also structure estate equalization so the child taking the business does not shortchange the others.
Incorporated business owners
Owners of Canadian-controlled private corporations with retained earnings that have nowhere efficient to go. Passive investment income inside the company grinds away the small business deduction, and pulling the money out personally triggers a heavy tax hit. Corporate-owned life insurance, paired with the Capital Dividend Account, is often the most tax-efficient path for that surplus to reach the family. As CPAs, we run that math with your accountant before any product enters the conversation.
CPAs, estate lawyers, and wealth advisors
Burlington and Halton have excellent accounting and estate law firms, and complex cases often need an insurance specialist on the team. We act as an insurance referral partner for CPAs and other advisors. We work alongside your client’s planning team, we document everything, and we never compete for the rest of the relationship.
One honest note on fit. If you are shopping for the cheapest term life quote online, we are the wrong firm, and a comparison site will serve you faster. Our work starts where an estate or a corporation makes the insurance decision a tax decision.
What a CPA-led insurance process looks like
Doug Leyland and Jordan Matters are both Chartered Professional Accountants, CPA, CA, with more than 35 years of combined wealth management and life insurance experience. That credential changes the order of operations. Most insurance conversations start with a product and work backwards to a justification. Ours start with your balance sheet, your corporate structure, and the actual tax exposure, and only then move to whether insurance solves the problem and how much of it you need. Sometimes the answer is less coverage than you expected. Sometimes it is none, and we say so.
We are independent, with access to all major Canadian carriers, so the recommendation is built around your numbers rather than one company’s shelf. You can see how an engagement unfolds step by step in our process, and meet Doug and Jordan on our team page.
The work behind the front door
A local page is easy to write. The strategy work behind it is the part worth checking. Before you call, you can read exactly how we think about the problems we solve: how a death benefit flows through the Capital Dividend Account to reach a family tax-free, how high net worth life insurance differs from the retail version, what joint last-to-die coverage does for a couple whose tax bill arrives on the second death, and how life insurance can fund charitable giving while cutting the estate’s tax at the same time. Every one of those pages was written by the people you would be meeting with.
Serving Burlington, Halton, and the GTA
The office is in Burlington, and most of our in-person work happens across Burlington, Oakville, Hamilton, Mississauga, and the Greater Toronto Area. Oakville families can also start with our dedicated page on high net worth advice in Oakville. Beyond driving distance, we work virtually with clients across Canada, excluding Quebec. The estate tax math does not change with the postal code, and neither does the process.
Common questions
Do you work with clients outside Burlington?
Yes. The office is in Burlington, and we regularly meet clients in person across Oakville, Hamilton, Mississauga, and the GTA. We also work virtually with clients across Canada, excluding Quebec. Local clients tend to prefer the office because their accountant can join the meeting easily.
Are you tied to one insurance company?
No. We are independent advisors with access to all major Canadian carriers. The analysis comes first, and the carrier is chosen to fit the plan, not the other way around. On large cases we will often show you how more than one carrier prices the same structure.
Do I need to bring my accountant or lawyer?
You do not need to, but we encourage it. The strategies we design touch your corporate structure, your will, and your tax filings, so your accountant and estate lawyer should be comfortable with the plan. As CPAs ourselves, we speak their language, and many of our cases actually arrive through them.
What does a first meeting look like and what does it cost?
The first meeting is a confidential conversation about your situation: your assets, your corporate structure, and what you want to happen at death. There is no charge and no product pitch. We leave with enough to estimate your estate’s tax exposure, and you leave knowing whether insurance is even the right tool. If it is not, we tell you plainly.
Is this only for business owners?
No. Roughly half of the work is for affluent families without an operating company: a cottage that has appreciated for decades, rental properties, a large RRIF, or significant investments. Anywhere the deemed disposition at death creates a tax bill the estate cannot easily pay in cash, the same funding logic applies.
Working with Leyland & Matters on this
If you searched for a life insurance advisor in Burlington and landed here, you were probably not looking for a quote engine. You were looking for someone local who can sit with you and your accountant, put your estate’s real tax number on paper, and design the most efficient way to fund it. That is the entire practice. Two CPA, CAs, one Burlington office, independent access to every major Canadian carrier, and a process that is led by your numbers rather than anyone’s product shelf.
Book a Burlington meeting. Bring your accountant if you like. You will leave with your estate tax exposure on paper before anyone says a word about a policy.