About Me

My name is Johanna Roseke and I am the founder of Conscious Legacy. My background has always been client focused. I was a retail sales professional for 20 years selling home furnishings and then high-end jewelry at Spence Diamonds. While I loved my career and was highly successful, the hours left me unable to tuck my kids in at night. I made being there for my kids in the evenings a priority and chose to switch careers to work in the insurance industry. This has a special family connection for me as my mother has the honor of being the first female to be qualified as an actuary at The Great-West Life Assurance Company. She was a trailblazer for woman in what was then a male dominated industry; her career is an inspiration to many. She always told me I could do anything I was truly interested in, and she said it with authentic belief and knowing as she achieved her major goals. Now hear I am, wanting to make a difference in financial security for families. I believe I can, specifically through helping people be conscious of how to use these insurance products available, so that they work in their best interest.

Johanna ParrottJohanna Roseke, Founder

Early on in my insurance career, I had a life changing client experience. My own sister and her family were one of my first clients purchasing life insurance and critical illness insurance. Healthy and vibrant with a young daughter, at the age of 33 my sister had a late-stage cancer diagnosis. I could never have fathomed how her health could change so suddenly. She was the strong and healthy one. I also saw and experienced intimately how the relief of financial stress allowed her to focus on what matters most: healing and being with loved ones. I am so thankful that this shift in my own career direction led to my sister and her family being protected in this way. After this experience I knew how deeply this work could really change peoples’ lives during a critical time.

I continued down this career path with a growing passion for the value of insurance, and gained worthwhile experience working for a large insurance firm. I wanted to focus more on the client experience, diverse product options, and the long-term benefits of properly placed insurance I decided the way to do things differently was to branch out on my own.  

My approach is fresh, authentic and honest. I believe a successful insurance consultation involves intimate and caring conversations that help me understand who you are and what’s important to you. From here we can create a strategy that will bring you peace of mind, security and relief, leaving you feeling protected and grateful for what you have in place. Helping someone make an important decision in their life has always been a part of my business practice. To me a client relationship means you are under my care and protection in the long-term. I represent you to an insurance company. I am your advocate. I broker insurance from a variety of insurers and will guide you in choosing the best products available.

Why I’m passionate about Insurance

Tabs

I'm very close with my sister. I admire her. I look up to her. I love her. It completely shook my world to find out that she had cancer. I never thought it would happen to her, let alone in her early 30s. It was very difficult to digest, and it was scary and stressful. Besides living together for most of her treatments, I don’t think I could have made an impact greater than having her insured before, during and after what she went through.

The benefits of insurance to my sister and her family were life changing. Critical illness insurance meant she received a tax-free lump sum of money when she was diagnosed, alleviating the financial stress of taking time away from work to focus on healing and family. Life Insurance means that if anything ever happens to her my brother-in-law and niece will be taken care of.

My sister's story has also fueled my passion about the urgency of insurance. On an uneventful average day, my sister went to have a facial spa treatment.  At the end of this cosmetic appointment, they noticed an area of concern on her skin. I had delivered her critical illness insurance policy to her that very morning. She literally received her policy hours before being told she had a medical concern, which was soon diagnosed as melanoma. She had no previous health symptoms or concerns. Her diagnosis came as a total shock to everyone.

I share this because for anyone who thinks they have time to think about this, or they want to put this conversation on the backburner and save it for another day, I urge you not to. If you are thinking about or have questions about insurance, please don’t wait. Schedule a call. My experience with my sister showed me that everyday matters, She literally would have been left without coverage if I hadn’t delivered her policy that day. It is urgent. Our health can change quickly, sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly. After you are diagnosed with a critical illness like cancer, you are often uninsurable.

While many people know about the basic benefits of insurance payouts, less are aware of the many creative and smart ways to use insurance products to enhance your financial security and build wealth, benefiting you and your family in the long-term. A few examples standout.

  • Life insurance is the best way to leave a legacy transferring wealth within your family tax free, creditor protected and bypassing probate (a government mandated process). Skipping that process means no one needs to knows about your money except for you and who you have designated to leave it to. It is passed to them directly, usually within 10 business days.
  • Contributing to charities using permanent life insurance allows you to significantly increase the impact of your donation. This multiplies not only what you give financially; it increases the possible difference you can make for a charity you know and want to be around long term.
  • Purchasing permanent life insurance for young children is a tax-sheltered, incredibly cost-effective and more versatile way of saving for your child’s future than most traditional education savings plans.
  • By enhancing your retirement with a permanent life insurance plan, you have a secure income option, access to equity, and a guaranteed financial legacy for your family.
  • If you own your own business, permanent life insurance provides an investment component with high levels of guarantees that can be used to get money out of your company in a tax efficient manner.

Besides RRSP’s and TFSA’s, permanent life insurance is only other tax-sheltered investment platform in Canada. It’s a financial tool used by people for the last 150 years. It can strategically protect you while building your family’s wealth for generations.

How I make a difference

Education and client empowerment are my keys to making a difference. I bring a new level of awareness to traditional and evolving insurance options. I create conversations where people can enjoy learning about insurance products, where talking about it can bring a sense of relief, not fear. The more we know, the more we are aware. The better we feel, the more connected we become. My mission is to contribute to insurance education and empowerment in four main areas.

I look at the big picture over the long-term and embrace an intergenerational approach. I am committed to the lengthy conversations and process needed to support clients towards making educated, informed decisions. I believe the practice of insurance sales often fails at empowering the client in a thorough understanding of the options, especially the distinct difference between term and permanent insurance.

I support people in a more thorough understanding of the coverage they carry.  A lot of people believe they have coverage and yet it is not the coverage they think they have. Much of this misunderstanding comes from a lack of education about the differences between group benefits and individual insurance products. I offer insurance education to help businesses and their employees understand the unique differences of each.

I am frequently surprised at how many people in my generation are struggling with serious, and at times, sudden illness. Many of these people do not have insurance and now are unable to qualify. There is a general lack of education in my generation and younger generations about the value of insurance and options available at a time when critical illnesses, such as cancer, are affecting all ages. My goal is to reach younger generations and develop educational programs that are engaging and relevant, highlighting critical illness as the most important insurance within the context of our current reality.

In bringing my whole being into this work, I aim to link it to the bigger conversation and relational needs of our collective wellbeing. We are all living with the reality of illness and death, and yet often we don’t talk about it. In having conversations about insurance, I want to make space for connecting and supporting each other in the very real ways this is impacting our families and communities. Even just listening to each other’s stories we can release some of the stress we are carrying and gain joy in our authentic human connection.