Firms make gains in product categories

Meanwhile, advisors with managing general agencies rated the “MGA’s help in positioning a product” category at 8.7 on average, an increase of half a point from 8.2 in 2009.

The reason for the high rating and significant increase in the latter category is that many advisors are happy with their MGA’s support, in both the technology they have for explaining a product and the product specialists on staff.

One of the top-rated firms in the category this year, Calgary-based PPI Solutions Inc., is a new entrant to the Report Card — and PPI Solutions advisors are definitely happy with the calibre of the MGA’s product specialists. “Any time I have questions and need input,” says an advisor in Ontario, “they have ideas.”

PPI Solutions offers advisors support in marketing their services and products by assisting in the preparation of marketing material and presentations, reviewing the client circumstances and assisting in product recommendations.

Part of that support comes from a new online tool kit the firm launched in June, which includes seven sales tools.

Says Jim Virtue, president and CEO of PPI Solutions: “They are all point-of-sale presentation tools that advisors can use for assistance when they are sitting in front of their clients and providing them with professional presentations.”

Adds a PPI Solutions advi-sor in Alberta: “They just came up with new stuff, and it’s important because the industry is always changing.”

The introduction of this new tool kit is a part of PPI Solutions’ rebranding initiative. The MGA was known as Financial Management Group of Cos. Inc., but it was rebranded after Calgary- and Toronto-based PPI Financial Group Inc. acquired a 50% stake in FMG this past February. This opened the door to collaboration between the two firms, and PPI Solutions is adopting many of PPI Financial’s product-development skills and support tools.

Meanwhile, advisors with Missis-sauga, Ont.-based MGA IDC Financial Inc. receive specialized support in positioning products. “We have internal people who help [advisors] with concepts and illustrations,” says Ron Madzia, the firm’s president, adding that having these specialists is part of IDC’s commitment to helping advisors build better businesses.

Advisors were clearly happy with the support these product specialists provide, rating their firm at 8.9 in the product support category — up from 8.4 in 2009.

“It’s personalized,” says an IDC advisor in Ontario of the firm’s product concepts and illustrations support. “They look at your situation, not just at the masses.”

Advisors with Woodbridge, Ont.-based MGA Hub Financial Inc. also said their firm gives excellent support in positioning a product. Although Hub had the lowest rating in the survey in the category, at 7.8, that is an improvement from 7.4 last year — and advisors say the technology tools and the firm’s internal product support specialists are the main reasons. “The website provides a lot of information on products,” says a Hub advisor in Ontario, “and has a tool that suggests what to do for each client.”
@page_break@In fact, Hub offers a proprietary program for concepts and illustrations, says the firm’s president, Terri DiFlorio: “It brings in the illustrations from all the different carriers’ software.”

In addition, there is also an in-house team available to help advi-sors. This team, DiFlorio says, provides “product support [and] concepts for the brokers. They’ll wrap a quote in a concept and provide that for brokers [who can take] the whole presentation out and see their clients.”

Many Hub advisors like having this team at their fingertips. Says an advisor in Ontario: “They have meetings all the time to update us on new products and give us ideas on how to sell them, who to sell them to, and where to find them.”

As for advisors at the dedicated sales agencies, they were more enthusiastic about their firms’ efforts in bringing new investment products to market this year.

Advisors with Toronto-based Sun Life Financial (Canada) Inc. were the most pleased, as they rated their firm at 8.0 — not only tops in the category, but up by 0.9 of a point over 2009.

The reason? “[The firm] just announced a new mutual fund company,” says a Sun Life advisor in Ontario. “They are really getting into the wealth-management business.”

Many Sun Life advisors shared this excitement about the new mutual fund firm, which will launch in the fall. A new lineup of mutual funds developed in-house will be available to all Sun Life advisors.

This will not be the first time Sun Life has offered its own mutual funds. Toronto-based parent Sun Life Financial Inc. sold off most of its Canadian mutual fund operations — Spectrum Investments Inc. and Clarica Diversico Ltd. — to CI Fund Management Inc. in 2002 in exchange for a 30% stake in CI. Sun Life then sold its stake in CI to Bank of Nova Scotia in 2008.

Advisors with the sole independent direct sales agency in the survey, Winnipeg-based Great-West Life Assurance Co., were also satisfied with their firm’s efforts in this category — but for different reasons.

Although frustration remains over the slow pace in bringing out new products — such as segregated funds with a guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit — GWL advisors are a little more understanding of that restraint because of the market turmoil in the past two years. This appears to be the reason why the firm’s performance rating increased by a whopping 1.5 points to 7.2 from 5.7 in 2009.

Says a GWL advisor in Ontario: “[Management] usually watches what works and what doesn’t. They let [other firms] bring a new product out, they watch it and then introduce it.”

Although GWL is taking its time in introducing new products, the firm’s advisors are confident their firm will eventually get the job done.

That’s not the case, however, at Mississauga, Ont.-based RBC Life Insurance Co. Advisors there are frustrated with the firm’s failure to fulfil its product-related promises.

In fact, RBC Life’s rating in the category is down by 0.8 of a point, to 6.6 from 7.4 last year.

“[Management] can never make a decision,” says an RBC Life advi-sor in British Columbia. “They are always saying things will come out next year.”

Much of this frustration stems from the firm’s lack of annuity products. “We do not have annuities,” says an RBC Life advisor in Alberta, “which is bad, because it would be beneficial to have a wider range of products to offer our clients.”

RBC Life executives realize there are concerns about its products, but say it comes down to priorities.

Ernie Murdoch, RBC Life’s senior vice president of career sales, notes that the firm plans to roll out annuity products in early 2011. “It’s not something we were focused on,” he says, “but now we are.”

IE