The Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada has made three changes to its group and retail offering.
Effective Jan. 1, 2012, the company will stop selling individual universal life insurance, term insurance, whole life insurance and critical illness insurance. It will continue to service its existing block of life insurance business, and to include life insurance coverage in its group benefits offering.
Additionally, Standard Life announced that plan sponsors can now add socially responsible investment (SRI) funds to investment options for any group savings and retirement plan. Also, retail customers now have access to the company’s new simplified Ideal Term Funds.
“Today’s announcement is another step in Standard Life’s strategy to focus on the activities that have the best potential for sustainable growth,” said Joseph Iannicelli, president and CEO. “This change will help us speed up the growth of the three business segments where we’re most competitive, and to respond to customer needs with products such as our new Ideal Term Funds and SRI funds.”
The company is now offering four individual Meritas SRI Funds for group savings and retirement plans. A recent survey conducted for Standard Life found that one-third (32%) of Canadian investors said they are “very” or “somewhat” interested in SRIs, and 55% indicated that they would consider SRIs if the return was “as good or better” than other investments.
The new Ideal Term Funds are designed to appeal to investors looking for an alternative to banks’ guaranteed investment certificates and Canada Savings Bonds.
David Nish, CEO of Standard Life PLC, recently spoke to Benefits Canada about his plans for the company since taking the helm in January 2010.
“I set out that I was going to take three years to effectively transform the business. [We’ve been] developing a greater understanding of what advisors and customers really need with regard to types of products and propositions,” he said.
“We are a core pension delivery company; it’s really at our heart,” he continued. “I’ve been looking a lot at how we operate, how we structure ourselves, and really trying to get the group working with much more energy looking forward.”
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