Joseph iannicelli doesn’t see Standard Life Assurance Co. of Canada’s recent corporate restructuring or proposed demutualization as a strategic challenge. The move to bring the Canadian operations of the Edinburgh-based insurer under the wholly owned Canadian subsidiary is an important step in giving the firm more economical access to capital. But it’s not the kind of business challenge for which Iannicelli is known.

Instead, Iannicelli, who was appointed president of Standard Life Canada in December 2004, is focusing on the firm’s growth strategy.

“The domestication and demutualization exercises really don’t affect our strategy for growth in Canada,” he says, from the company’s Montreal headquarters. “We still see ourselves as a company that can grow significantly in the marketplace. We have market share and good traction in several lines of business — and we want to grow in
Canada for sure.”

The corporate restructuring has been in the
works since Scottish parent Standard Life Assurance Co. announced a year ago that it intended to present a demutualization proposal at its 2006 annual general meeting. Domestication, which means creating a Canadian company to handle the firm’s Canadian business, was the preamble to demutualization.

Previously, Standard Life’s Canadian operation was a branch of the parent. Under the new structure, the company created a wholly owned Canadian subsidiary, Standard Life Assurance Co. of Canada, and transferred the business handled by the Canadian branch over to the new entity. The company says domestication reduces the cost of capital and will have positive tax consequences, although this behind-the-scenes structural change will have no effect on individual policyholders or products.

Standard Life has a broad spectrum of product lines — individual insurance, group insurance, individual investments and group retirement savings. And although the firm has built a reputation as a niche player, Iannicelli hopes to gain market share through growth in all product lines.

Iannicelli himself has played a big role in Standard Life’s success in niche marketing, and it’s a safe bet his track record as senior vice president of group insurance is what earned him the presidency. He is known as an entrepreneurial executive and his recent accomplishment with a group disability product line demonstrates that
entrepreneurial flair.

Four years ago, Standard Life was striving to
become the carrier of choice in all segments of the group insurance market. Iannicelli decided to embark on a new strategy to become a niche player in the group disability market. The idea was to focus on one product and one market segment. Iannicelli and his team chose the mid-sized segment — groups comprising 50 to 1,000 lives.
Tailoring the product for this particular market was a major undertaking. It meant reviewing and enhancing all aspects of the insurance product and all the activities surrounding it — pricing policies, risk criteria and distributor relationships. It also entailed developing new communications and education programs for intermediaries, as well as for Standard Life employees.

“It was a bit of a risk,” Iannicelli admits, “because we weren’t sure the marketplace was going to accept the more targeted strategy, in terms of distribution and market segment.”

The risk paid off. In three years the product line, which previously had very little market share, more than doubled its portfolio to slightly less than $500 million. Iannicelli managed that growth while making the product line, in his words, “exceptionally profitable.

“The balance between growth and profitability is delicate,” he says. “It’s very easy to grow and not be profitable, and it’s very easy to be profitable and not grow.” But the group disability product did both — and became the company’s lead group insurance product. The program has worked so well the company is now expanding into
the larger group market.

As president, Iannicelli intends to apply the same kind of approach to other product lines.

“We don’t take uncontrolled risk,” he says.
“We take mitigated, controlled risk. I think that in order to compete in a competitive marketplace, the internal speed of change in your organization should be faster than the external speed of change in the marketplace.”

Since joining Standard Life in 1992, Iannicelli has spent his 14 years with the firm in group insurance. He has been in management positions since 1995, as regional sales manager of group insurance for Toronto, vice president of marketing for group life and health and, most recently, as senior vice president of group insurance.