Hello all,

I am considering relocation to Canada and I wanted to ask this community for some guidance.

Firstly, some background - I am 36 years old and my wife to be is 41. Her son from previous marriage is 19 and currently in a serious relationship with a Canadian national. We are all Polish nationals with an Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK and we own a property here which we intend to keep. We also have fairly decent savings.

In terms of education, I have a BA degree in Business Administration and I am ACII Chartered Insurer qualified. My current job is quite niche and specialist - I am a Life Science Underwriter dealing with Mid-Market/Corporate global insurance programmes including Human Clinical Trials. I understand this is a particularly big area in Toronto area although I’m not restricting myself to any particular region. I understand tha Montreal is out of the picture without being able to speak French. In total, I have over 11 experience in the industry.

I consider myself bilingual (English and Polish) and have Certificate in Advanced English. Am I right in thinking that IELTS is required in Canadian visa applications?

I’m not quite sure which route would be best in our situation but currently I work for a global and specialist insurer (which is also present in Canada), and I’ve approached our Toronto office to see if any such internal transfer is feasible at all. I understand they are looking at business needs as they need to prove they couldn’t fill a role in Canada before considering any foreign applicants. Could anyone comment on this?

I have approached Insurance Institute in Canada for some initial guidance and they confirmed that ACII designation is an equivalent of 4 CIP credits but I’m yet to establish if this automatically puts me as CIP qualified. Again, I’d appreciate if someone could comment if possible?

I haven’t mentioned my fiancee or stepson because the intention would be for them to come and join me in 2-3 years and sort our lives in the U.K. All in all, my profile is the strongest of us all so I wanted to know what chance do I have of ever being able to work and live in Canada.

Thank you in advance for any replies, and I’d appreciate all the advice.

Greg

The easiest way would be a a work permit as a Temporary Foreign Worker via Intra-company transfer Specialist knowledge category. If you qualify the company can get you up to a 3 year work permit and would not require an LMIA, that is the do not need to prove to Canadian immigration that they cannot fill role from Canada. They may wish to do so from an internal policy standpoint of course.

Once here you should be able to transition easily to PR down the road but do check your CRS score to make sure.

Hi Jason,
thanks a a lot for a response, greatly appreciated. I’ve been in contact with the Insurance Institute of Canada and they said I was eligible for 4 credits towards the CIP so I’ve got the qualifications aspect covered.
I’m currently in discussions with my current employer who is also present in Canada, and I’m looking into a possibility of an inter company transfer which I believe is my best option.
I also tried approaching a few agencies and people on LinkedIn but so far have only had responses saying no one had any success with international placements. Would you happen to have any contacts you could recommend me getting in touch with? I’ve been in underwriting for the past 9 years and I have experience in a rather niche Life Sciences arena and multinational global programmes so I’d like to think I have experience that might be useful for someone in a Canadian market.
A different angle I’m looking into is Federal Skilled Workers Program - from what I gather Insurance underwriter is NOC class B. I need to book IELTS test and get my degree sent for accreditation.
is there anything I missed or any tips that you could give me? I made up my mind on wanting to relocate and I’m looking full speed ahead into it.
Many thanks,
Greg

If you can apply for PR without a job offer, then do. You'll be much more employable as you won't need sponsorship, plus of course it's much more secure for you as you won't be tied to your employer unlike a TWP.

Do just check your CRS score though, unfortunately your age will count against you and you'll lose points again next birthday, so make sure you're scoring enough to get an invite to apply for PR (approx 450 or more as a rough guide). You can just guess your IELTS score for now, it's only to give you an idea and to make sure it's worth you applying for IELTS and the ECA - no point in spending money on those things if you wouldn't score enough anyway.

Good luck.

Hey, having used the tool on a Canadian embassy website, I’m looking at 408 score depending on my age at the time (assuming that I’ll pass IELTS reasonably high, and I’ll get my degree accredited by one of the agencies). I initially misread one of the questions asking for a relevant experience in Canada, thinking that I have a decent score but it looks like I’m below 450. Does anyone know how difficult it is to pass this test in one of the top brackets?

So far, I approached few local recruitment agencies but they don’t seem to be particularly interested in international placements. Maybe with the PR this would look different.

One last point on the FSWP, does anyone know how complicated is a degree accreditation process?

Thanks

Yep, I know it’s too low. I only started looking into the whole thing about a month ago so hopefully my current employer will be able to help me with the transfer which is probably the only viable option. I could boost my score with either a job offer or a few years of qualifying experience so it’s a bit of catch 22 situation. Any one have any thoughts about working around that?