Sun Life Financial of Canada (SLFoC) is to stop selling through its UK direct sales force and will l...
Sun Life Financial of Canada (SLFoC) is to stop selling through its UK direct sales force and will launch a new, expanded IFA operation in the next few months.
According to the company, the decision was taken in response to reduced margins and growing competition from larger companies. Although a consultation process has been initiated by employee representatives, the move means that only 300 of the company's 2,000-strong UK workforce will survive redundancy by 2003.
Steve Melcher, UK managing director, said: "We came to the reluctant conclusion that maintaining a direct selling arm is no longer sustainable. Traditional direct sales are just too expensive to run."
In response to the cuts, the company is launching a new IFA network. The operation, called Host, will initially include around 100 intermediaries, growing to 400 over the next few years.
Paul Riddell, corporate affairs manager at SLFoC, said: "Although we are stopping new direct business, we have made plans to increase our IFA network and launch the new operation this spring. We have had much interest from both existing and new intermediaries and hope to expand the network over the next few years."
According to the company, the central operations will remain at its Basingstoke headquarters and all existing customers will be contacted to assure them that there will be no threat to the security or performance of their policies as a result of the cuts. A newly-installed administration system and communications centre will continue to service all existing policyholders.
