Sun Life, one of the country’s largest insurers, has shed light on recent business changes in an exclusive interview with Insurance Business.
Canadians’ life and health insurance needs have changed dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic. More people are seeking financial protection, but amid high inflation and challenging economic conditions, customers want more bang out of their insurance buck.
Sun Life saw this shift as an opportunity to deliver a more holistic approach to their customers’ health, wealth and protection needs.
Last year, it merged two of its largest business units – Sun Life financial distribution and insurance solutions – to create retail advice and solutions.
The unit aims to provide tailored insurance products to clients and leverage an omnichannel approach to distributing those products.
For Rowena Chan (pictured), president, Sun Life Financial Distributors (Canada), and senior vice-president, retail advice & solutions, the move flows naturally from the company’s core purpose.
“Our purpose is to help clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives, and that drives and inspires everything we do,” she said.
The Insurance Business Canada Elite Women 2023 awardee was behind the push to integrate two units within Sun Life. She spoke to Insurance Business about the strategy, and what advisors and clients can expect from the team moving forward.
“While financial distribution and insurance solutions were both advancing in strong paces as individual units, we also saw tremendous opportunities to build on our collective capabilities and experiences to be innovators and disruptors across our industry, and further maximise client impact,” Chan said.
According to Sun Life, some of the innovations from the new unit include:
Ultimately, the creation of retail advice and solutions is about putting clients “at the centre from solutions manufacturing to distribution,” according to Chan.
“We anchored it on providing tailored, trusted advice to clients,” she said. “This is really a client-first, client-centric change to bring the two teams together.”
Increasing digitization in the life insurance distribution channel role and the shift in customer behaviour played a key role in Sun Life’s decision to establish a more streamlined business unit.
Chan said the team was driven to understand the post-pandemic landscape, and the needs of advisors and clients, and apply this to their strategy.
“If you think about how the industry is moving in protection, in health, and in wealth, and how customers’ behaviour changed since the pandemic, there was no better time to take the opportunity and move with the momentum,” Chan said. “I think the timing was quite perfect as we continued on this transformation journey.”
Key to retail advice and solutions’ client-first and client-centric strategy was empowering Sun Life advisors. Sun Life Canada boasts nearly 2,500 advisors in more than 1,100 communities, forming the largest dedicated life, health, and investment services network in Canada.
The combination of financial distribution and insurance solutions can elevate the company’s ability to help its advisors deliver on three critical points, according to Chan:
“We are continuously enhancing our solutions shelf based on the evolving client needs and also to innovate and develop new and tailored solutions,” she said.
Sun Life’s Diabetes Signature Solutions is a prime example of this innovation, according to Chan. The program increases the accessibility and affordability of life insurance for the more than 5.7 million Canadians, around 15% of the country’s population, who live with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
“Diabetes Signature Solutions is a health and sustainability driven pilot. It’s a first-of-its-kind end-to-end solution, spanning product, underwriting, distribution, and client experience,” Chan said.
When it comes to strengthening its distribution channels, Sun Life Canada has built out a continuum including direct digital, hybrid, and face-to-face options. Its digital-first platform, Prospr by Sun Life empowers Canadians to select, prioritize and track their goals all in one place while offering the option to speak to a licenced advisor through phone or video call.
“This allows us to meet the wide spectrum of needs and preferences clients have in doing business with us. So, it's their choice,” said Chan. “By doing this, we further enable our advisors to build long-term client relationships by delivering trusted advice to our clients.
“Finally, combining the power of human advice that can only come from an advisor plus digital capabilities also increases ease and convenience. The behaviour of our clients and Canadians has evolved significantly on the digital front. That means we have and will continue to invest in creating very intuitive, very simple ways for clients to interact with us and with our advisors, as well digital tools for advisors so that they can run more efficient practices.”
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