More Canadians underwent colorectal and breast cancer screening in 2024 compared with 2017, according to data Statistics Canada released Wednesday.

Nearly half (49%) of people in the provinces aged 50 to 74 had a fecal test in the past two years or a sigmoidoscopy in the last 10 years to screen for colorectal cancer, compared with 43% in 2017. The data did not include people who have had a colonoscopy and could be undercounting the proportion of Canadians who have undergone screening for colorectal cancer.

For women aged 50 to 74 in the provinces, 79% had a mammogram to look for breast cancer in the past three years, compared with 78% in 2017. Mammogram participation was highest in Alberta (84%) and Ontario (81%) and lowest in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island (both 67%).

However, only 69% of women aged 25 to 69 in the provinces had a Pap smear test for cervical cancer in the past three years, compared with 74% in 2017. The test was most common (75%) for those aged 35 to 49, followed by those aged 25 to 34 (70%) and women aged 50 to 69 (64%).

In recent years, two of the big three insurers have extended life insurance coverage to cancer survivors. They can apply to all lines of life insurance products with Manulife and Sun Life, and may receive standard ratings depending on factors such as cancer type and stability period.

While applications within the first five years of treatment completion are more likely to be rated, those premiums can come down over time. If an applicant is denied for applying too soon after treatment ended, the insurer could issue a lesser product in the meantime and ask the applicant to reapply for a mainstream product later.

In response to an email, a Canada Life spokesperson wrote, “we don’t have information to share.”

Amid greater regulatory scrutiny, industry consolidation, tech disruption and the trend of independence, successful life agents will be those who build business skills, meet evolving compliance requirements and offer advice as opposed to information.

During a discussion on the future of insurance distribution at Advocis’ annual symposium on Thursday in Toronto, panellists weighed in on the skills life agents must build to thrive.

Phil Marsillo, president and CEO of IDC WIN, suggested advisors improve their skills in running a business versus a sales organization. (Marsillo is also president of the Canadian Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies.)

“In the old days, you were working within an agency [and] things were done for you,” Marsillo said. “Today, even if you’re working with an MGA [managing general agency], you are still considered an independent business person.”

He also suggested life agents understand the concept of teaming. As products become increasingly complicated, work with people and organizations that can support you in areas outside your own expertise, Marsillo said. “That’s how you build value, that’s how you’re going to grow your business.”

Marsillo also noted the importance of documentation. During life agent audits, “reason why” letters are often missing, he said. And audits will increase as regulators place greater scrutiny on insurers and MGAs. He suggested recording Zoom meetings with clients as the basis for “reason why” letters.

Stephen Frank, president and CEO of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, said expectations for documentation are increasing, requiring “the professionalization” of the sales process.

“We’re trying to shoot to a principles-based, not a checklist-based, regulatory world,” Frank said. As such, life agents must be “more professional at documenting and being able to demonstrate [they’ve] treated [their] clients fairly…. Everyone’s going to have to up their game around that.”

Brent Lemanski, executive director of LIMRA and LOMA Canada in Toronto, suggested life agents focus on advice. “There’s a bifurcation between access to information and advice,” Lemanski said. He suggested life agents “move away from spreadsheet selling to story selling.” That means building skill at recognizing consumers’ needs and offering them a personalized story about how they’ll benefit from advice, he said.

Lemanski also suggested building hybrid skill sets. Examples are adding personal touches to your video background as a way to better connect with clients, and learning how to conduct client meetings virtually. “We need to be more aware of consumer needs and even perhaps segment our client base based on their desire for communications — whether it’s virtual and or in person,” he said.

Advisor.ca and sister publication Investment Executive were media sponsors of the event.

Manulife Financial Corp. reported $1.6 billion in net income attributed to shareholders for the last quarter of 2024, down 3% compared to the same quarter in 2023. Earnings per share were 88 cents, up slightly from 86 cents in the same period.

The insurance giant had $1.61 billion in assets under management and administration as of Dec. 31, 2024, compared to $1.39 billion at the same time in 2023.

Canadian core earnings for 2024 were $1.57 billion, compared to $1.49 billion the year prior. The increase was primarily driven by business growth in group insurance and improved individual insurance experience, partially offset by lower expected investment earnings.

Individual insurance annual premium equivalent sales in Canada came in at $523 million in 2024, down 7% compared with 2023. Manulife reported that this was caused by a large, one-off affinity markets sale in 2023, and partially offset by higher participating life insurance sales.

Canadian group insurance annual premium equivalent sales of $923 million in 2024 were up 43% compared to 2023, reflecting higher sales across all group benefits markets, primarily from large-case sales.

Annuity annual premium equivalent sales came in at $243 million in 2024, up 21% compared with 2023. This was mainly driven by higher sales of segregated fund products in Canada.

Contractual service margin — or the value of unearned profits — in Canada was $4.1 billion, an increase of $49 million compared with 2023.

Manulife had 27 artificial intelligence (AI) use cases in 2024 with another 32 in development, it said in the management’s discussion and analysis. For example, it has used a generative AI sales tool in Singapore and Japan to create personalized engagement strategies based on needs, preferences, demographic data and transaction histories. AI has also been used to automate document digitization during underwriting in the U.S. and Singapore.

This article has been updated to correct a figure.

Sun Life Financial Inc. says it earned $237 million in its fourth quarter.

That’s down from $749 million a year earlier.

Underlying net income for the quarter was $965 million, down from $983 million a year earlier.

The company’s earnings were affected by market conditions, as well as an impairment in its Vietnam business, said president and CEO Kevin Strain. However, he said Sun Life saw strong underlying net income in Asia and Canada last year.

Sun Life had $1.54 billion in assets under management at the end of the quarter, up from $1.4 billion the same quarter a year prior.

The Canadian division’s underlying net income was $366 million, up $16 million compared to the last quarter of 2023.

This was primarily driven by business growth and higher fee income in wealth and asset management as well as favourable mortality experience in individual protection, which was partially offset by high claims volumes and longer claims periods in group health and protection, the insurer said.

Sun Life reported wealth and asset management gross flows in Canada of $4.9 billion, down 9% from a year ago. Group health and protection sales also fell 49% as there were large case sales last year and individual protection sales fell 17% from lower third-party sales.

The insurance giant said its diluted earnings per share were 41 cents, down from $1.28 during the fourth quarter of 2023.

— This story contains a correction.

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) has revoked the licence of a former life agent who bought real estate with client money and who also faces ongoing criminal charges and civil cases.

Robert Randall Hawken and his company, Dufferin Insurance Group, in London, Ont., are no longer suitable to be licensed, FSRA said in a release on Thursday.

Hawken misappropriated funds from clients and provided false and misleading information to them, and on eight licence renewal applications from 2009 to 2023, according to FSRA’s proposal to revoke his licence, dated Nov. 21, 2024. On the renewal applications, Hawken falsely declared he conducted business only in the name under which he was licensed, the proposal said.

Hawken was licensed as a life insurance and accident and sickness agent since 1994, it said, and was contracted with managing general agency Financial Horizons until March 2024, when he was terminated for cause.

On the last day of April 2024, FSRA received a complaint from a client concerned about his inherited investments, the proposal said, because police had told the client that Hawken was under investigation for fraud.

As reported last year by The London Free Press, police had contacted people affected by a potential fraud last spring after receiving a tip from a staff member at Hawken’s company, and several lawsuits were subsequently filed against Hawken.

In May 2024, Hawken confirmed to FSRA that he used money from the complaining client’s mother and from other clients to buy properties.

In that same month, Manulife submitted a life agent misconduct report to FSRA about Hawken, based on an investigation by both Manulife and Financial Horizons, which found that Hawken misappropriated more than $2 million from more than 20 clients, FSRA’s proposal said.

“Hawken demonstrated incompetence and untrustworthiness by misrepresenting to his insurance clients that he was investing their funds when in fact he was using their funds for his own personal use,” the proposal said.

Hawken’s licence would have expired on May 30, 2025. He didn’t request a hearing before the Financial Services Tribunal or contest FSRA’s proposal to revoke his licence, the regulator said in Thursday’s release.

Last month, the Free Press reported a notice of garnishment of $7,700 was issued against Hawken as part of an ongoing $580,000 lawsuit launched in September.

Great-West Lifeco Inc. says it earned $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024, up from $740 million a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings, or what Great-West calls base earnings, were $1.1 billion, up from $971 billion.

The Winnipeg-based insurer raised its dividend and said it intends to purchase $500 million in common shares in 2025.

It said insurance and annuities sales in Canada were down slightly to $180 million from $175 million in the final quarter of 2023.

In a release, Paul Mahon, president and CEO of Great-West Lifeco, noted the strong results set new quarterly and full-year records.

“The strength of the company’s earnings momentum and the value created for
shareholders is reflected in the 10% increase in the company’s dividend and our intention to repurchase additional common shares,” he said. “These results reflect our unrelenting focus to deliver on our growth strategies which has enabled us to exceed our medium-term financial objectives.”

The company raised the quarterly dividend by 10% to 61 cents per common share.

Net earnings per common share were $1.20, up from 79 cents during the same quarter last year.

The company reported a base return on equity of 17.5%, up from 16.6% a year earlier.

With files from Advisor.

Three weeks into his new role as president of managing general agency (MGA) Financial Horizons, Sean Downey says he’s not planning radical overhaul at the Kitchener-based firm, which has been in business since 1990. 

“My role here is to be a steady hand to drive this business forward. It’s not to come in and make a bunch of changes to a model that’s successful today,” he said in an interview. 

Financial Horizons was bought by Great-West Life in 2017 and is now owned by Great-West subsidiary Canada Life. It offers insurance solutions from more than 20 carriers to about 6,500 advisors and life agents, Downey said. Those carriers include Manulife, Sun Life and Industrial Alliance. Financial Horizons works with life-only licensed agents and advisors whose businesses include both insurance and wealth components. 

“Canada Life has a place on our shelf, but earns the right to business the same way every other carrier does on an MGA platform,” Downey said. 

“We’re quite proud of the autonomy and the independence we have because advisors are looking for partners that value their independence,” he said. “What we do here at Financial Horizons is ensure that advisors have an independent platform, free from any influence. They can pick and choose who they do business with.” 

Downey has spent 23 years in the financial services sector, most of it focused on helping advisors grow their business. He comes to Financial Horizons after a six-month stint as vice-president, advisor growth and succession, at Investment Planning Counsel. Before that, he was at Canada Life/Great-West Life for more than 14 years, most recently as vice-president of wealth distribution platforms. 

There are big challenges ahead for the industry, including changes in technology and regulation, Downey said. 

“Financial Horizons’ core business is about driving advisor success,” he said, adding advisors are looking for innovative tools that will help them easily onboard clients and run their business in the most efficient, cost-effective and compliant way. 

Downey said he believes the firm is on the right technology path, even if they’ve only begun studying potential applications for artificial intelligence (AI).  

“AI is obviously transforming the way technology is being leveraged in business, I’d say very specifically on the service side of the business, but it’s premature now to talk about where AI is playing in the MGA technology space,” he said. 

Downey’s also keeping abreast of potential regulatory changes ahead for MGA licensing. 

“Our industry is constantly evolving,” he said. “We are constantly looking for opportunities to ensure both the business and advisors are properly supported through that change and ultimately bring the right market-facing opportunity support network from a compliance perspective.” 

He sees opportunities for both organic and merger-and-acquisition growth for Financial Horizons, despite the highly competitive acquisitions environment that’s endured for the last six years. 

“If you followed Financial Horizons’ path to where it is today, it’s been a blend of organic and inorganic growth,” he said. “There are a number of opportunities inorganically in the marketplace, and we are always open and looking for ways to scale up.” 

When Jorge Ramos sent out a survey asking managing general agency (MGA) Carte Wealth Management advisors how they sold group benefits, he heard that group benefits took too long to quote, were difficult to service and some even ignored sales opportunities.

So, Ramos started online platform Viver in 2023 and took on the role as the company’s president. Carte’s president Kirk Purai has partial equity in Viver.

Instead of taking up to two weeks to get a group benefits quote, Viver can produce one in about 10 minutes.

Viver’s application process only asks the employer questions they know off the top of their head, such as the number of employees, their approximate ages and the industry type. It doesn’t require detailed demographic data like gender, marital status or the number of children each employee has.

“We did a lot of data research,” Ramos said in an interview. “If we have a thousand clients in a room, I can tell you with 90% accuracy what percentage are male or female and what percentage are married. It’s just data.”

Already, 30 MGAs and associate general agencies have signed on with Viver. The company is licensed in B.C., Alberta and Ontario, and has also applied for licensing in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which it expects to receive in weeks. It’s also started the process in Quebec.

In the coming weeks, Viver will add group long-term and short-term disability insurance to its shelf, Ramos said.

Co-operators Group Ltd. underwrites Viver’s policies, but getting a carrier to buy into the online quotation platform wasn’t easy.

“In the beginning, some of the companies we spoke to said, ‘It couldn’t work that way. We always need all of this information,’” Ramos said. Co-operators was open to hearing more of Ramos’s vision and eventually “jumped on board.”

Viver appeals to newly licensed life agents and those who avoid small group cases, which take a lot of work and don’t pay large commissions, Ramos said. Viver reduces the administrative workload for those smaller cases.

An agent can do email marketing with a referral link where a client can get a quote and buy group insurance online, so it’s possible an agent could earn a commission without doing any of the onboarding work.

If the advisor wasn’t part of the sale, they don’t need to service it, Ramos said. Viver has a team of eight people managing ongoing service, and the cost has been built into its revenue model.

Still, Ramos encourages agents to be part of ongoing service as employees under a group plan could be leads for life products.

All new policies and renewals have guaranteed rates for two years, to entice clients to stay on for longer. As claims usually spike in the first year a company adopts group benefits, two-year contracts lower renewal premiums, Ramos said. “The second year comes down a little bit and I can average it out.”

Ontario’s financial services regulator has begun consulting on a proposed rule for managing general agents (MGAs) — a growing distribution channel with a new licensing requirement.

The new proposed rule aims to better protect consumers and strengthen oversight of MGAs, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) said in a release on Tuesday.

“It will also help ensure consumers are treated fairly and consistently, and they are receiving advice from well-trained and properly supervised agents,” the release said.

In its fall economic statement in October, Ontario’s government proposed creating a new licensing regime for the insurance industry to enhance consumer protection and clarify the roles and responsibilities of insurers, distributors and agents.

Earlier in 2024, the province’s Finance Ministry had consulted on licensing standards for MGAs following evidence of “unfair consumer treatment” arising from the poor conduct of some MGAs and their agents, and some deficiencies in insurers’ oversight of MGAs.

For example, from May 2022 to April 2023, FSRA reviewed dozens of life agents contracted with firms that tie compensation to agent recruitment. That model creates the potential to “focus on recruiting to a greater extent than agent suitability and customer needs analysis,” FSRA said in a 2023 report detailing its review.

The regulator also found that the majority of the reviewed life agents’ insurance policy sales in 2020 and 2021 were universal life. In many cases, the sales of that product, which FSRA has described as niche and complex, were unsuitable.

FSRA said in the release on Tuesday that its proposed rule builds on amendments to the Insurance Act creating a separate licensing class for MGAs in the province and enhances accountability for MGAs and insurers by clarifying their roles and responsibilities in agent supervision.

For example, MGAs that train life agents are responsible for ensuring agents understand “how to be clear, accurate and not misleading with respect to the solicitation and negotiation of, and the provision of advice with respect to, insurance,” the proposal says.

FSRA’s rule also introduces requirements for life agents who work with MGAs. For example, life agents must “avoid or properly manage” conflicts arising when recruiting other agents for an MGA, the proposal says.

The consultation runs to March 31, and FSRA said in a notice of the rule that it will use feedback to draft potential guidance.

We’ve compiled a list of our best reads of the year, across the themes of wealth management, insurance, tax, risk, regulation and our exclusive Partnering like a pro series. 

Wealth management

The energy transition is as important an investment theme as it is complicated. That’s nowhere more evident than the critical minerals rush. Noushin Ziafati dug into ESG in mining.

Amid critical minerals rush, here’s what investors must consider

Insurance

Cancer survivors can qualify for a standard rating on life policies, thanks to increasing survival rates and changing underwriting procedures. Jonathan Got the story. (See what we did there?)

How insurers extended life insurance coverage to cancer survivors

Tax

Advisors and tax professionals scrambled to deal with surprise changes to the capital gains inclusion rate in this year’s federal budget. Rudy Mezzetta on the rush to sell assets and what comes next.

What happens to the capital gains tax changes if the government falls?

Risk

Even before he started talking up Canadian tariffs, the election of Donald Trump to a second presidential term turned investors into CNN obsessives. Katie Keir and Michelle Schriver talked to advisors about talking to clients.

Advisors talk Trump, politics and investing post–U.S. election

Regulation

The penalties for financial advisors caught using pre-signed or altered client forms have grown more stiff since 2016. One lawyer who contested three such cases last year, says the fine increases have been “arbitrary.” Michelle Schriver on what advisors need to know.

Surging penalties for pre-signed forms contested for first time

Partnering like a pro

It’s a relationship business, in more ways than one. Melissa Shin and Noushin Ziafati paired up to deliver a remarkable package of collaboration success stories.

Partnering like a pro

Partnering like a pro: Advisors and family meeting facilitators

Partnering like a pro: Advisors and accountants

Partnering like a pro: Advisors and mortgage agents

Partnering like a pro: Advisors and eldercare consultants