Insurance

Children’s CI an underserved market

Critical illness insurance for children presents a good news-bad news scenario for advisors seeking to boost revenues. On the upside, the market is underserved and therefore less competitive. But it remains a difficult sale, as CI usually ranks fairly low on a list of client priorities. “You don’t have a lot of people focussed on […]

By Al Emid |January 18, 2011

4 min read

Industry

Great-West introduces ‘Performers’ plan

With its new plan, Great-West Life is targeting businesses with fewer than 35 employees.

By John Powell |January 13, 2011

1 min read

Living Benefits

Empire Life offers excess withdrawal alert

Empire Life has announced a new service for its Class Plus customers, giving them a heads up if they make withdrawals that could affect their future guaranteed income. The Excess Withdrawal Alert (EWA) service is a no-cost, automatic service that notifies clients through their advisor, if a withdrawal they have requested exceeds their annual limit. […]

By Staff |January 11, 2011

1 min read

Industry

Canada Life offers CITS-approved inforce feed

Canada Life has announced it is now offering a new Canadian Insurance Transaction Standardization (CITS)-approved “inforce” data feed to managing general agencies and national accounts with which it deals. The company already offers a CITS “pending” business-to-business feed. Together the feeds allow distributors to easily access information on both their inforce and pending business with […]

By Staff |January 10, 2011

1 min read

Hub International goes shopping

Hub International Limited, the Chicago-based parent of Hub Financial, has acquired the assets of Phoenix Insurance Group Grande Prairie Inc., an Alberta-based insurance brokerage and part of the overall Phoenix Insurance Group. The firm will become part of Hub International Barton (Hub Barton) within the Hub International Canada West region. The three partners of the […]

By Steven Lamb |January 5, 2011

2 min read

Preparing the power of attorney

What happens when your client is no longer capable of making his or her own decisions? Perhaps your client has planned for this event and given a power of attorney (POA) to someone he or she trusts. What, then, is your new role?

5 min read

The critical illness claims process

I recently returned from a Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) meeting held in Vancouver, where I had the privilege of conducting a session entitled How to Package the Critical Illness Sale. The hour-long presentation discussed the importance of critical illness insurance, reasons why it should be integrated into an estate plan and a methodology of calculating the amount of critical illness insurance and the plan designs. I also discussed underwriting, presenting the case and the claims and adjudication process we follow in our office.

December 1, 2010

3 min read

Briefly: “ScotiaLife expands insurance business” and more news

Scotiabank Group has rolled out three new individual term life insurance products, which will be available at its ScotiaLife Financial Insurance Centres. In addition, it announced the opening of its second retail ScotiaLife Financial Insurance Centre, located in downtown Toronto. The term life offering marks the first individual life insurance products available through ScotiaLife Financial. […]

By Staff |November 25, 2010

3 min read

Canadians expect later retirement

Canadians are coming to grips with the notion that their original retirement plan might not work out as they expected, according to a survey by AXA. The 2010 edition of the Retirement Scope survey found an increasing number of Canadians now believe they will have to work later into life than they had planned. On […]

By Steven Lamb |November 9, 2010

2 min read