There is a date in your benefits plan that almost nobody knows. For most people it is the first of January. For others it is the anniversary of the day they were hired. On that date, whatever you have not spent does not roll over. It goes back to the insurer, and you start again at zero.
It is not a small amount of money. About two-thirds of Canadians — roughly 23 million people — have extended health coverage through work or a partner's plan, according to the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. Most of it is never claimed.
What the numbers actually say
The clearest picture comes from claims data rather than surveys, because claims record what people did rather than what they say they would do. A ten-year review of member claims by Great-West Life, reported by CBC in 2013 and still the most detailed public breakdown of its kind, found:
- Dental: claimed by just under 80% of eligible members
- Vision care: under 50%
- Massage therapy: 27%
- Chiropractic: 18%
- Physiotherapy: just over 15%
Read that list again, because its shape matters more than any single number. The things people claim are the things they have been told are routine — the twice-yearly cleaning, the new glasses. Nobody has to explain those. The things people do not claim are the things nobody ever framed as routine, even when the coverage is sitting right there.
Understanding is the bottleneck, and the plans themselves know it. In the 2025 Benefits Canada Healthcare Survey, 53% of plan members said they understood their plan very well — which sounds reassuring until you notice that one in ten admitted they do not understand their coverage at all, and only just over half felt their plan met their needs.
A 2024 RBC Insurance survey of 1,000 working Canadians found something starker. Only 5% said employer benefits were their main support for their wellbeing. Nearly a quarter of people who already have benefits said they do not know much about what those benefits cover. Telus Health puts it at 22% unclear about their coverage, and found workers under 40 twice as likely to be unclear as those over 50.
Four reasons it goes unspent
One: nobody explained what any of it is for. Most people were never taught why you would see a naturopathic doctor, or an acupuncturist, or a clinical counsellor if you are not in crisis. School does not cover it. A seven-minute appointment with a family doctor does not cover it. So the coverage exists in the abstract, attached to no particular reason to use it.
Two: the maximums are small enough to feel not worth starting. This one is real and it deserves saying plainly. The 2025 Benefits Canada Healthcare Survey puts a standard plan at roughly $300 to $500 per practitioner per year. Meanwhile iA Financial Group's fee data has a massage therapy visit at $140 to $200 as of January 2026, and physiotherapy at $105 to $145. So a typical massage maximum buys you three appointments. Sometimes two.
Three appointments is not enough to fix a shoulder. It is, however, more than enough to find out whether the thing you have been ignoring for eight months is structural or postural — which is a different question, and a more useful one.
Three: most of us only go when something already hurts. Benefits get spent reactively, because that is how we were all taught to think about health care. The whole point of a paramedical benefit is that it works better before the emergency than after it.
Four: it is genuinely a hassle. Finding a practitioner, working out whether they direct bill, finding an appointment that fits around work. Each step is small. Together they are enough to make people quietly not bother. The 2025 Telus Mental Health Index found more than three in five workers get unclear or inconsistent information about the health programs their own employer is paying for.
What to do instead
Not “use it all”. Triage.
If time or money is limited — and for most people both are — the question worth asking is not what am I entitled to. It is what is most pressing, and what will make the biggest difference to how I actually feel. Then spend there first.
A worked example. A $360 spa massage and three 50-minute treatments with a registered massage therapist cost about the same. One is a lovely afternoon. The other is a course of treatment, it is claimable, and by the third session someone has a working picture of what is going on in your shoulder. Same money, completely different result.
Two other things worth knowing.
Mental health coverage is usually the first to run out. Only 25% of plan sponsors covered mental health providers under their paramedical maximum in 2025, down from 33% the year before. With psychologists and psychotherapists at $240 to $300 an hour, a combined maximum can be gone in three sessions. If counselling is what you need, find that number before you start rather than after.
Ask your insurer what else counts. Some plans reimburse classes led by a registered practitioner as rehabilitation rather than as fitness. It is not universal and it is not safe to assume — but it is a two-minute phone call, and the arithmetic changes considerably if the answer is yes.
The short version
Find out three things: what your plan covers, how much of each, and the date it resets. Your benefits booklet has all three, and so does the number on the back of your card. It takes about ten minutes.
Then pick the one thing that is actually bothering you, and start there.
If you would rather not read a benefits booklet, our benefits analyzer asks six questions and gives you an estimate in about ninety seconds. Or book a Benefits Planning Session — it is complimentary, we go through your coverage together, and you leave with a plan whether or not you book anything else.