Compare a Financial Product: A Seven-Check Method
Define the need before reviewing offers, then compare each option’s full cost over the same period.
Published 2026-07-21
Facing any financial product, the discomfort is the same: where to start? A seven-check method, applicable to insurance as much as an investment or a card, replaces improvisation. One, the need, written down before looking at anything — otherwise the offer defines the need. Two, the full cost, every fee brought to a common period. Three, the conditions that must stay true for the promise to hold. Four, the unfavourable scenario, quantified, never accepted as verbal reassurance. Five, the source: who presents the product and how that person is paid. Six, the date: are the cited rules in force? Seven, the alternative: what does the status quo deliver? A product must beat that baseline, not merely exist. The method stops cold at the first failed check. This article details each step with its standard questions and shows the method at work on three everyday products.
Write the need before looking
The first check precedes any contact with the offers: the need, formulated in writing in one sentence — amount, horizon, main constraint. Protect the family income for fifteen years; grow twenty thousand dollars available in five years; finance a roof over eighteen months. Without that prior formulation, the commercial mechanics invert: the offer defines the need, the product creates its own necessity, and the buyer ends up justifying the purchase rather than deciding it. The written sentence becomes the referee of everything that follows: each presented product is measured against it — what serves it advances, what serves something else gets named for what it is. Serious sellers work willingly with a written need; the others find it restrictive — useful information.
Bring all the costs to one period
Checks two and three attack the blur: the complete cost — all fees, one-time, recurring, conditional — brought to a common period, the year or the full duration, in dollars; and the conditions, the list of what must stay true for the promise to hold — guaranteed or revisable rate, ceiling, behavioural requirements. The dollar conversion over a common period neutralizes the skilful presentations: the modest monthly fee that totals large, the discreet percentage on a big amount. The written conditions neutralize the oral promise: what does not appear in the contract does not exist, and the question what would make this promise false produces the most instructive answers of the entire process. Ask it out loud.
Demand the downside scenario in numbers
The fourth check is the test most sales fail: the unfavourable scenario, quantified. What happens if the rate rises two points, if the market falls twenty percent, if you cancel in two years, if the income that pays gets interrupted? Every product has its adverse scenario, and its honest presentation includes it in dollars: the exit penalty, the value on early surrender, the payment at the renewed rate. A seller unable or reluctant to quantify their own product's downside delivers the meeting's decisive information. The quantified scenario is then compared with your capacity to absorb it: a bearable downside makes the product debatable; a ruinous one closes the discussion, however beautiful the central scenario.
Verify the source and price the status quo
Two final checks frame the decision. The source: who presents the product, with what verifiable expertise, and how that person is paid — commission, salary, fees — compensation steering recommendations without invalidating them. The date: are the cited tax rules and conditions in force, stale information being a common trap. The alternative finally, the last guardrail: what does the status quo deliver, or the simplest option — savings account, debt repayment, index fund as the case may be? Any product must beat that priced baseline, not merely exist with qualities. The method stops at the first failed check, in order: that is its economy's virtue, most bad products falling before the fourth.
Quebec scenario: compare before confirming
A guidance counsellor in Roberval was pitched three products in one month — insurance, investment, credit card — and noticed her discomfort was the same each time: where to start? She writes herself a seven-check method, taped inside her planner, and now applies it to every offer. One, the need: written down before looking at anything, otherwise the offer defines the need. Two, the full cost: every fee, brought to a common period, comparable across options. Three, the conditions: what must remain true for the promise to hold. Four, the unfavourable scenario: what happens if the rate rises, if she cancels, if the market falls. Five, the source: who presents the product and how that person is paid. Six, the date: are the rules cited still in force? Seven, the alternative: what does the status quo, or the simplest option, deliver? Applied to the investment proposal received the day before, the method stops at check four: the unfavourable scenario was never quantified by the representative. The next meeting starts exactly there, and the answer she gets changes her decision. The method's virtue, she tells colleagues, is not intelligence — it is order.
Checklist
- Write the need before looking at offers
- Bring every fee to a common period
- List the conditions that must stay true
- Demand the downside scenario in numbers
- Ask who pays the seller
- Verify the date of the cited rules
- Price the alternative
- Stop at the first failed check
- Document the decision and its review date
Frequently asked questions
Why write down the need before looking at offers?
Because a well-presented offer redefines the need to its own advantage: without a prior written formulation, the product ends up asking the question it answers. One sentence suffices — amount, horizon, main constraint. The rest of the method rests on it.
What must the unfavourable scenario cover?
What happens if the central assumption breaks: a rate that rises, a market that falls, a cancellation, a delay. Demand the number, not verbal reassurance: a salesperson unable to quantify their product's downside has already given you decisive information.
How do I account for the seller's compensation?
Ask directly: commission, salary, fees, institutional ties. The answer disqualifies no one, but it illuminates the recommendations. Complete with the alternative: what does the status quo, or the simplest option, deliver? A product must beat that baseline, not merely exist.