Sun Life Financial of Canada (SLFoC)has started selling its group risk products through independent financial advisers (IFAs) because it is cheaper than direct selling.
The insurer will concentrate on selling through employee benefits consultancies and IFAs, including Gissings, Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt.
It is offering products such as group income protection, flexible benefits, ill health early retirement and group waiver of premium.
But the insurer is not selling critical illness (CI).
Managing director Paul Davies said: “The CI market is small in terms of group schemes. We can do it if it’s needed but very few employers request it.
“We sell ourselves as being a major player in the protection market that doesn’t have a salesforce. It works out cheaper and because the protection business is so fast moving, IFAs have direct access to our claims team.”