Skip to content
Admiral Canada

Individual crypto holders

Self-custody, with a plan for when things go wrong.

Holding your own keys removes counterparty risk and replaces it with personal responsibility. A house fire, a burglary, a hardware device that fails mid-update, or a family member who cannot find the backup after you are gone — each can make assets permanently unreachable.

We help individuals document their storage arrangements in the way underwriters expect: how keys were generated, where backups are held, who knows what. That documentation is valuable in itself, whether or not you go on to buy cover.

Personal cold-storage cover is a young market. Where it is available, it typically responds to physical loss events rather than mistakes, and it always depends on the controls you can evidence.

Illustrative case study

A flooded basement in Winnipeg

An illustrative scenario: a holder keeps a single steel backup in a basement safe. A spring flood corrodes the safe lock and the hardware device inside. With a second, geographically separated backup documented, access is restored within days; without it, the loss is total. We use cases like this to show why underwriters ask about backup separation.

Frequently asked