TORONTO (Reuters) -Canada’s Sun Life Financial on Wednesday reported a 10% rise in fourth-quarter core profit, boosted by strong demand for personal insurance in its home market and in the United States.
Canada’s second-biggest life insurer has benefited from a slew of acquisitions, partnerships and bancassurance deals, where insurer sells products through a bank’s sales channels, that has helped it add thousands of clients and grow its reach to clients in many Asian countries.
The partnerships, including that with Hong Kong’s virtual insurer Bowtie and Canada’s Scotiabank to distribute alternative investment options, comes as it competes with bigger rival Manulife.
In Canada, it bought virtual care provider Dialogue Health Technologies and made an investment in virtual pharmacy Pillway.
Those moves helped Sun Life record a 32% growth in core profit in its Canadian operations, also driven by higher volume and yields. In the U.S., core profit rose 8%.
Earnings from the wealth and asset management unit rose 7%.
Overall, underlying profit was C$983 million ($730.31 million), or C$1.68 a share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, from C$892 million, or C$1.52, a year earlier.
($1 = 1.3460 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in TorontoEditing by Chris Reese and Lisa Shumaker)
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