Sun Life Financial Inc. is preparing to launch a new line of segregated funds this spring as the company focuses on growing its individual wealth business in the Canadian marketplace, executives said on Thursday.
At Sun Life’s Investor Day 2015 in Toronto, executives highlighted the company’s recent performance, as well as medium-term goals and growth plans. The individual wealth market presents a key area of focus for the firm, said Dean Connor, president and CEO of Sun Life.
“In Canada, we’ve been investing significantly in individual wealth over the past three years,” he said.
As part of its efforts to expand in this market, the company is preparing to launch a new proprietary seg fund platform in spring 2015.
“This is a big market, and we believe that we will grow to be a major player over time,” said Kevin Dougherty, president of Sun Life Financial Canada. “We’re excited about the potential here.”
Sun Life’s existing line of seg funds, called SunWise, were developed under an agreement with CI Investments Inc., which manages the funds. With that agreement having come to an end, Sun Life recognized an opportunity to develop a line of funds in-house, according to Connor.
“We’ve come off…a very successful partnership with CI Investments, where we’ve co-developed products that have done a really good job for clients,” he said. “With the conclusion of our agreement with CI…we’re free to develop our own seg fund products.”
Once the new funds launch, the SunWise funds will be closed to new purchases, although existing policyholders will still be able to make additional deposits.
The new line of funds will provide Sun Life with full autonomy over the products, Dougherty said.
“It makes more sense for us to have complete control of the marketing, the distribution and the manufacturing of the seg fund product. That’s what all the other insurance companies do,” he said. “It’s simpler, and it fits more with our strategy.”
Sun Life will also be able to leverage the mutual fund platform that it launched three years ago, Sun Life Global Investments, as it develops its new seg fund lineup.
“Sun Life Global Investments will play a prominent role on the platform, but there will be other funds available as well,” Dougherty said.
Seg funds continue to have appeal in the Canadian market, given their unique estate planning features and other advantages, Dougherty said. He noted that across the industry, sales rose to $13.1 billion in 2014, up from $10.8 billion in 2013.
“Seg funds have a strong place in the Canadian insurance market,” he said. “Used right, it’s a very powerful tool for advisors.”
The new line of funds will round out Sun Life’s broader individual wealth offerings, including mutual funds and annuities. The company’s career sales force, which now has more than 2,500 dual-licensed advisors, has been an important distribution channel for these products, the executives said.
“Wealth sales have been growing at over 20% in this channel as advisors move more and more to holistic financial planning and benefit from more and more product breadth,” Dougherty said.
The career sales force has also been a key factor in helping Sun Life grow its individual insurance sales in Canada, Dougherty added.
“In individual insurance, we have continued to grow our sales, both in market share and in absolute terms, where others have actually struggled in recent times,” he said.
Specifically, Dougherty pointed to figures showing that Sun Life’s insurance sales increased to $303 million in 2014 from $275 million in 2013, and the company’s market share rose to 19.1% in 2014 from 17.8% in 2013.
Sun Life is also focused on expanding sales through its network of independent advisors, the executives said. In particular, the company has aggressively grown its team of wholesale staff members on the wealth side in the past couple of years, and as a result, sales of wealth products through third party distribution channels grew to $827 million in 2014 from $438 million in 2012.